


Karma Police

by edema_ruh



Series: Post-Endgame Iron Dad Angst [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Fever Dreams, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Dad, Iron dad and Spider son, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker-centric, Poor Peter Parker, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Protective Tony Stark, Spells & Enchantments, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Worried Tony Stark, spider son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edema_ruh/pseuds/edema_ruh
Summary: "Trust me, when I walked into that small apartment in Queens to recruit some dumpster-diver kid who liked to dress up in an ugly onesie, I didn’t think I’d get emotionally attached, either”, he admitted. “But here I am. And if something happened to you, Pete – god, this is ridiculous, but I mean it when I say I simply don’t know what I’d do”.Peter stared at Tony. He was sure his face was doing something ugly because of the effort it took him to keep himself from downright sobbing.“You’re a good kid. And, as cheesy as it may sound, I care about you. Hell, kid, I’d probably force myself to figure out time travel if it meant I could keep you alive and safe”.





	1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, when Peter was still a kid and he could still say, without a single trace of doubt, that he was _happy_ , Uncle Ben used to take him to the park to play in the sand and maybe pet some dogs, if there were any around. They’d play catch all morning long, until May called to invite them to have lunch somewhere nice. And in those days, those good, fun, warm summer days, with children laughing in the background and Ben ruffling his messy hair, Peter could almost pretend he didn’t miss his dad.

What was there to miss, after all? Peter could barely remember him anyway; he had been too young when he and his mom passed away, he had been too young to even understand what had happened until years and years later, when a kid first knocked him down in the middle of the school’s hallway and called him an _orphan loser_.

He had May. He had Ben. That was all he ever needed, and that all he could have asked for, right? And he was happy. He was really, really happy.

Yeah. Those days were far gone, now.

He sits at the top of a building, staring down at the empty park he used to play at with Uncle Ben back in those days. Of course it’s empty – it’s the middle of the night. But the bluish hue of the sand in the night makes something nostalgic erupt inside him, something that makes it a bit harder to breathe and makes him want to web his way back home and just sleep. The feeling gets worse when he glances the other way, trying to ignore the object of his discomfort, only to be faced with a huge Iron Man graffiti staring right down at him.

Right.

Maybe this was punishment. You know? For replacing his dad so easily. For acting like he didn’t need him, like he could put someone else in a role that was his, and his only. But Peter had been just a kid, he hadn’t know any better, and he had allowed Ben to take up the empty space Richard had left in his life, and after Ben was gone, that space had been filled by…

Well.

Maybe he shouldn’t have replaced his dad so easily, that’s all. Maybe this was his punishment for being such an ungrateful son, for forsaking his roots so easily, so naturally. Maybe this was his punishment for forgetting.

 _It’s your fault_ , a tiny voice whispers at the back of his brain. Peter closes his eyes and sighs.

There’s no crime in progress around there. His patrol is as good as over. He pulls his mask back down his face, jumps off the roof, and webs himself back home. He climbs into his bedroom through his partially open window and May never learns he even left that night.

Peter isn’t a little boy anymore. He knows better than to make the same mistake twice. Wasn’t it Einstein that said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

He might have forgotten Richard when he was a little kid, but he hadn’t forgotten Ben, and he sure as hell wouldn’t forget Mr. Stark.

Of course he should have known better.

He stumbles his way home, a hand wrapped around his ribs, feeling sore all over, eyesight blurry and swimming. He can hear Karen talking to him in the distance, telling him to do something, but all he wants is to just lie down and take a nap, preferably for a few days straight. He’s so tired. He can’t remember ever feeling that tired.

He flops down on his bed and removes his mask, gasping as the dried blood from the cuts on his face sticks to the fabric and pulls at his oversensitive skin. In fact, his skin isn’t the only thing that’s oversensitive – he can hear all noises all the way down from twenty blocks, the lights coming from outside, however dim, are making his eyes tingle, and the lingering smell of burnt food from when May tried to make them pancakes two days ago is making his nose itch and his stomach churn. He’s pretty sure he’s shivering, and his extremities feel like they’re freezing, but he just sighs and closes his eyes. His hand is still clutching at his mask as his head tilts to the side and he begins to doze off, dirty suit still on.

Jeez, what a long day. After the London fiasco with Mysterio and the reveal of his identity, things only got harder for him. Of course, a lot of people stepped in to help – Mrs. Potts released an official statement assuring the public that Peter was not Spider-Man, several Avengers – those who were left, at least – also made public claims to disrupt that rumor, and even May tried to start a campaign with her charity group to defend Peter (even though the fact that May _Parker_ knew Spider-Man well enough to invite him over to her charity talks did raise some eyebrows).

Thing is – most people had forgotten all about that identity reveal event already, and most of those who still remembered didn’t believe it. C’mon, take a look at Peter Parker: the boy is so awkward he would probably apologize to a fly instead of killing it.

The most surprising factor of this entire ordeal, however, was probably the bond Peter had somehow ended up developing with Flash. The boy was so disbelieving of the rumor that Peter was Spider-Man that he actually stepped up to defend him in several occasions. Not only that – he went as far as volunteering to help Peter make those rumors die down. Peter couldn’t say he wasn’t relieved to have some support – which was kind of rare, these days –, even though he knew Flash was only doing it because he thought Peter was so pathetic he could _never_ be Spider-Man. But hey, he would take what he could get.

Still… there were some people who didn’t let things slide so easily, or weren’t as disbelieving of Peter’s association with Spider-Man as Flash. Most of these people were Daily Bugle readers, and, even though they had never even seen Mysterio in action or met him in person, they still bought the story told about his death and they still hated Spider-Man for it. Even though, not to brag, Peter was the one who had saved their damn neighborhood, city, world, _and_ universe. But maybe they just liked to be edgy; who knew?

Well. He supposed the only thing Beck had been right about was that these days, people will believe anything.

And those people who believed anything apparently wanted to hurt him, for some reason he couldn’t wrap his head around.

Anyway, long story short: long day. _Long_ day.

He could vaguely hear Karen’s voice still saying something over his mask’s comm, but it was in his hand and Peter was too tired to put it back on. Whatever it was, it could wait – if it was urgent, he would be hearing the police sirens in the distance, or cries for help, or _something at all –_ his hearing sense was ridiculously enhanced at that moment, for some reason. Which was why he grabbed his pillow and buried his head beneath it, trying to block out some of the sound and finally get some well-deserved rest.

Peter shivered with cold, but was too tired to get up and grab himself a blanket or a cover. He figured his Spider-Man suit would have to do the job of keeping him warm, for the time being.

They had gotten through worse, that suit and him.

_“Kid, what’d I tell you about overworking?”_

_“Hey, spiderling. Are you listening to me?”_

_“Wow. You really outdid yourself this time, didn’t you?”_

_“Fine. I’ll go get you a blanket, but don’t get used to it. Next time, fall asleep on your bed like a grown-up”._

“Peter! Are you home yet?”

May placed her keys on the little bowl in the center of the dining table and entered the apartment, heading straight to the kitchen for a cup of water. As she abandoned her purse on the kitchen table and opened the fridge, she grabbed a little magnet with a phone number.

“I was thinking of ordering some pizza, what do you want?”

She drank her water and picked her phone from inside her purse, dialing the number on the magnet.

“I’m calling them already, is it ok if I get pepperoni?”

Silence. She frowned.

“Peter?”, she asked, looking in the direction of the boy’s bedroom. The door was ajar, but she couldn’t see if Peter was inside from where she was standing. Making her way to the bedroom with her phone still in hands, May knocked on the door and waited for a moment. “Peter?”

When no response came, she finished the call on her phone just as the pizza place picked up, shoving it in her back pocket and slowly pushing the door open. “Peter, I’m coming in”.

The sight that met her made her heart tighten inside her chest. Peter was curled up on the bed, lying on a fetal position, Spider-Man suit still on, pillow covering his head. The room was dim-lit and, even from where she was standing by the door, she could see the way Peter was shaking and trembling from the cold.

“Oh, honey”, she said mournfully, taking in how ragged and dirty the suit looked. Peter had probably gotten home after a patrol and gone straight to sleep, exhausted.

He only ever did that on particularly bad days, and even know May could understand and sympathize with the need to just go straight to bed after a rough night, she also knew better than to leave her nephew in that state. She approached Peter’s bed.

“Let’s get you out of these clothes, all right? Then you can go back to sleep”, she said sweetly to the sleeping boy, bending over so that she could strip him off the Spider-Man suit and get him into some comfortable pajamas.

As soon as she grabbed a hold of Peter’s arm, however, she could tell something was wrong. His skin was unnaturally, unhealthily hot – he was burning up with fever.

“Oh my god”, May frowned in concern, growing frantic. She grabbed Peter’s shoulders and turned him around on the bed so that he was lying on his back. The sleeping boy just moved lifelessly as his aunt moved him, head lolling limply to the side. Removing the pillow from above his head, May gasped in a sharp breath.

Peter’s face was covered in bruises, one of his eyes swollen and puffy, a blood-smeared cut on the bridge of his nose and several tiny scratches all over his cheeks. She placed the back of her hand against his forehead, attesting that he was, in fact, burning up.

Without wasting time, May got to her feet and rushed into the bathroom to grab a thermometer, a bowl of cool water, a few cloths, and an aspirin. She didn’t really know the details about Peter’s enhanced organism, but she was pretty sure the aspirin wouldn’t have too much of an effect on his fast metabolism. That didn’t mean she couldn’t try.

May kneeled in front of Peter on the bed, placing the thermometer into his slack mouth and already dampening up some cloths to put on his forehead in order to try and bring his temperature down. After those were set, she struggled to remove the suit from her limp nephew’s body, since Peter had grown a lot heavier now that he had more muscle mass. Being unconscious and completely limp didn’t exactly help her job, either.

After much effort and once she had finally managed to strip him down to his underwear, May grabbed a blanket and placed it atop Peter’s burning torso, meaning to preserve some of his privacy and to keep the boy from being too exposed to the room’s chilly air. He shivered, trying to turn on his side, but May placed a gentle hand against his shoulder and held him in place.

May took the thermometer from Peter’s mouth and found his fever was of 102 ºF (39 ºC), which, ok, _way_ too fucking high, so she wasted no time into shoving the aspirin into Peter’s mouth and helping him swallow it, even though she knew it would probably be useless. As she carefully lowered Peter’s head back towards the pillow, the boy’s eyes finally fluttered open, glassy and watery.

“Oh, Peter, thank god”, May sighed in relief as her nephew’s eyes found her face, searching it in a feverish confusion that was evidenced by his flushed cheeks.

“M-Mom?”, he asked, voice small and raspy.

She had not seen that coming. This broke her heart in all different ways, making her bow her head for a second and sigh before facing Peter again.

“No, sweetheart, it’s May”, she grabbed one of his hands, offering him a forced smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “It’s Aunt May. I’m here with you, ok? Can you tell me what happened?”

Peter stared at her, clearly not understanding one single word she was saying. His lips were parted slightly, as if he was trying to think of what to say next, before he decided to close his eyes and go back to sleep, probably reaching the conclusion that the effort was too much.

“Hey, hey, hey, Peter, don’t fall asleep just yet”, she squeezed his hand, trying to call his attention. He blinked again and looked at her, confused. “Can you tell me what happened? I need to know so I can make it better, ok, darling?”

He blinked sluggishly at her, eyes unfocused and vacant.

“Patrol”, he said simply. May sighed a shaky breath, nodding her head.

“Ok, good, patrol”, she encouraged him. “But what happened? Did someone hurt you during the patrol? Where does it hurt?”

Peter sighed, turning his head away from her and closing his eyes again, almost childishly.

“Wanna sleep”.

“Yes, honey, I know, and I’ll let you sleep, but first you need to tell me what happened, ok? Peter?”

She shook his shoulder slightly. The boy didn’t flinch or react, already passed out.

“Peter”, May called him again, her voice firmer this time, but it was useless. He was out cold. “Damn it”, she muttered under her breath, running a tired hand across her face.

Ok. It would be ok. She was a nurse, she could handle it. Plus, Peter had always been a pretty sick kid before he got his superpowers, and May had always taken good care of him. He had survived long enough to get a super enhanced spider metabolism, right? So she could do this. She could aid him back to health, she could take care of him, and then, when he got better, they would have a very serious talk about self-preservation and _knowing when to drop a fight._

Trying not to think the worst about the reason why Peter’s strong metabolism wasn’t already making him better and killing off his fever, May pulled the covers away from him in order to examine him. Maybe there was an infected wound that was causing the fever, or maybe his injuries required a hospital. After a long, thorough assessment, she found none of that – just a couple of bruised ribs that would be better in a few days, a few hematomas on his back, and the mess that was his face. She carefully cleaned the blood away from Peter’s nose and cuts, bandaged them as well as she could in the circumstances, and replaced the damp cloths on his face, torso, and arms in the hopes to bring his fever down.

She carefully ran her fingers across Peter’s dirty hair, pushing it away from his flustered forehead and clicking her tongue at the miserable sight of her sick nephew. If his fever didn’t come down soon, she would have to take more drastic measures.

_“How’re you feeling, kid?”_

_“Uh… Better?”_

_“You don’t sound so sure”._

_“Sorry, sorry. I’ll be ok, I’m getting there”._

_A sigh._

_“Come on, kiddo. You don’t have to do this, we’re past this”._

_“Mr. Stark –“_

_“Just tell me what’s wrong. Go on. Point blank, no playing around. Whatever it is, Friday and I can work on making it better”._

_“Fine. Uh… Remember that time I told you about my super heightened senses? How they’d been dialed to 11?”_

_“Sure”._

_“Let’s say they’ve been dialed to 100 now”._

_“Wow”._

_“Yeah”._

_“Is there a reason behind that? Does that happen often?”_

_“Not really, no, not after I got used to it. I think it might have something to with…”_

_“With what?”_

_“Uh. Nothing”._

_A sigh._

_“You’re kind of testing my patience here, Underoos”._

_“Fine, right, sorry, uh. I don’t know. I think I ate something that made me kind of sick? And when I get sick, my senses get_ way _more heightened. I think it’s because my body’s too busy trying to fight it off and it stops blocking out – uh, everything”._

_A pregnant pause._

_“Ok, so you can be stabbed and heal in five minutes, but if you eat bad cereal you get a tummy ache and heightened senses?”_

_Peter shrugged._

_“Apparently…?”_

_“Jeez, kid”._

_“Sorry, Mr. Stark”._

_“Are you apologizing for feeling sick?”_

_“I guess?”_

_“Ok, I’m gonna stop you right there. All right, come on. I probably have something for food poisoning in the –_ Jesus _, Peter”._

_“Huh?”_

_“You’re_ burning up _. Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”_

_“I feel fine”._

_“Sure you do, webhead. Do you seriously think you can lie to me at this point?”_

_“Wouldn’t dream of it, Mr. Stark”._

_“Yeah, you better not. If I find out you ever tricked me, I’ll have Friday sell all your dumpster-diving gadgets on eBay”._

_“You can’t do that!”_

_“Try me”._

_“That’s unfair”._

_“What’s unfair is the number of brand-new grey hairs I have on my head because of you. Come on, let’s go down to the medbay”._

_“But Mr. Stark –“_

_“No whining”._

“Hi, May”.

“Oh, Happy, thank god, you picked up. Listen –“

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes. I mean, no, not really. Uh, I think I need a bit of help”.

“Ok. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Peter”.

There was a pregnant pause.

“I’m on my way. Are you home? What happened?”

“Yes, we’re home. I got here around an hour ago and found him unconscious on the bed. He’s got a fever and he’s barely coherent, I don’t know what’s causing it, but it isn’t coming down. Anything I give him just burns through his system and none of the things I did so far had any effect. I want to give him a cold shower, but I can’t carry him to the bathroom on my own, he’s gotten too heavy and I don’t want to drop him and hurt him further. Can you give me a hand?”

“Sure, I’m twenty minutes out. I’ll be there as fast as I can, ok?”

“Ok, ok. Thank you, Happy”.

“No need to thank me. I’ll be there soon”.

“Yeah, ok”.

_“You ready to tell me how you’re really feeling, kiddo?”_

_“I’m better, I’m better. Thanks, Mr. Stark”._

_“No need to thank me. What about the earplugs?”_

_“They’re perfect, they’re working just fine”._

_“Good. If you need anything, ask Friday to call me, all right?”_

_“All right”._

_“You good?”_

_“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m good”._

_“Ok. Get some rest, now. And I mean_ rest _, Peter. If you’re playing Candy Crush or making a vlog or whatever it is you do on your phone instead of sleeping by the time I check on you –“_

_“You’ll sell all my stuff on eBay”._

_“You’ve got it, kid. I’ll be up at the workshop if you need me”._

_“Ok”._

_“Hey, Mr. Stark?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“You should get some sleep, too”._

_A pause._

_“Focus on yourself for now, kid”._

“Hey, there, Spider-Kid. Can you hear me?”

Peter stared up at the familiar face hovering above him. He couldn’t really make sense of what was happening or who that was, but he knew that face. It was familiar. It was… comforting? He couldn’t really remember why or understand how. But, glancing up at that blurry goatee, he knew he could relax, because he was safe.

Who was that? Was that his dad? That would explain why he felt protected and why his chest felt warm, right?

“Dad?”, he slurred.

“ _Jesus,_ May”.

“I told you he’s out of it”.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was _that_ bad. Ok”, the man turned to him again. “Hey, Peter? It’s me, it’s Happy. I’m gonna pick you up now, ok?”

Peter squinted, trying to see past his blurry vision. Happy…? Oh, right, yeah, he remembered Happy. Happy was good. He was nice, he was… He was a friend of… Uh…?

The world turned upside down and Peter’s sense of balance was knocked out of him as the room spun around and gravity went haywire. His eyes rolled in their sockets as he tried to make sense of what was happening; up became down, down became up, and before he knew better, everything went black.

When he came to again, he was drowning.

He struggled, trying to find the surface, trying to get rid of the parachute that was making his limbs stuck and that was dragging him down, further and further and further down into the lake…

“Kid. Kid, listen to me, stop struggling”.

He was sinking, it was so cold, so, so cold, he was going to drown, he was going to die, he was going to drown and die and that would be it for Spider-Man, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man would be taken down by a creepy vulture guy and a freezing lake in the middle of the night, and no one even knew where he was, no one knew where to find him, May would get so worried and he didn’t want to make her sad, and there was someone else who would be disappointed in him, the last person Peter ever wanted to disappoint…

“Peter! Peter, stop struggling, dear, I know this sucks, but you’re burning up –“

There was something nagging at his memory, something weird, something wrong, because he could vaguely remember getting out of that lake, though, so how was he in it again? He couldn’t remember how he got out, he… He was stuck, he was sinking –

“May, stay back”.

“Happy –“

“He’s too strong and he’s out of it, he could hurt you on accident –“

“No, he’d –“

“He’s delusional with fever, May, he’s not in control right now”.

No, what? He would never hurt May, he wanted to protect May, he’d never lay a finger on her, that… That was ridiculous.

“Well, if that’s the case, he could hurt you too!”

“No…”

“Peter, buddy, I know you’re cold and I know this sucks, but things will only be worse if you struggle, ok?”

“No…”

“Oh my god. Ok, get him out”.

“What?”

“This clearly isn’t working, get him out”.

“It takes some time to cool someone down, he’s been in for barely two minutes –“

“I know, Happy, but look at him! He needs a hospital!”

A pregnant pause.

“You know we can’t –“

“Yes, I _know_. But this isn’t working and he’s suffering, so get him out and let’s get him dried up while I try to figure out what to do”.

“Fine”.

Gravity dislodged again and he was no longer drowning.

And then it dawned on him.

He remembered.

It had been Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark had saved him, he had dived in, cut the parachute off him, and hoisted him out of the water before it could fill up his lungs. And when Peter had been freezing, trembling, and shaking from the cold water, he had turned on the heater of his suit.

“Mr. Stark, c-can you turn up the heat, p-please…”, Peter slurred, head lolling to rest against Happy’s chest while he embraced Peter’s torso and May held his legs.

The couple exchanged a wary look, and Happy felt like he had just been hit in the face with a bag of bricks.

Peter was placed back on his bed in a sitting position and he was shaking so hard he felt about to topple over, weren’t it for the pair of hands on his shoulders keeping him in place. Someone was rubbing him with something, and his oversensitive skin was hurting, and he tried to get away but couldn’t.

It felt just like Titan had felt – his skin tingling, and then coming apart, _him_ coming apart, and that thought made his breath catch in his throat and his heart start racing and the tingling sensation wasn’t going away, it was getting worse, it was getting worse, he would fall apart again –

“What’s happening to him? Why can’t he breathe?!”

“I don’t know, I’m just trying to dry him –“

“Mr. Stark – M-Mr. Stark I don’t – I don’t know what’s happening – I – I –“

“Peter. Peter, look at me”.

Someone was holding his face, making him face something, but his vision was unfocused and he couldn’t see anything other than a blurry blotch that resembled a head.

“Peter. You need to snap out of it, ok? Hey, hey, hey. Kid. Are you with me?”

Peter stared at Happy through half-lidded eyes, his feverish face red as a tomato and his lips parted as he tried to breathe past his panic. His face was covered in sweat and his hair, damp from the cold bath, was sticking to it. His unfocused eyes bore no recognition in them, and they were tearing up from the confusion and fear that accompanied his panic.

Then Peter’s eyes rolled back, his eyelids fluttered closed, and he toppled forwards, collapsing against Happy’s chest.

_“Hey, Mr. Stark, you know what’s super cool?”_

_“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me regardless of my answer”._

_“Holotables”._

_“Holotables?”_

_“Yeah, man! They’re like. Super practical, you know? I wish they taught us more about it at school”._

_“Wait, wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me your high school, which is only the basic amount of scientific and is located in the middle of Queens, teaches their bratty ten-year-old students how to use holotables?”_

_“Well… No. They only talked about it”._

_“…”_

_“Once”._

_“Jeez, Pete. All right. Don’t ask any further”._

_“What?”_

_“What’s what? Just come over next Thursday and I’ll show you how to use one”._

_“One what?”_

_“One welding machine. Whatcha think, web-brain? A holotable”._

_“Are – A-Are you serious, Mr. Stark?”_

_“Don’t make me regret this, kid. Time is money, and I’m about to spend mine teaching a 13-year-old –“_

_“I’m 15!”_

_“ – how to use top-notch tech that they only teach in, I don’t know, MIT”._

_“That’s so cool, Mr. Stark!”_

_“Yes, I know. Save the teenage excitement for when you tell your friend Ed about it”._

_“I can tell Ned about it?!”_

_“Oh, yeah, right, Ned, whatever. And honestly, Pete, does me saying ‘no, you can’t tell Ned’ ever stop you from going and doing just that?”_

_“Hey… That’s not fair. It only happened once”._

_“What about the alien raid time?”_

_“Ah, you didn’t say I couldn’t tell him about it that time!”_

_“Because it didn’t_ need _saying, Peter, it was a damn alien raid. Not telling anyone about it was implicit”._

_“But Mr. Stark –“_

_“I get it, kid, you’re a teen. You get excited about stuff. I’m not scolding you for it”._

_“Oh. Okay”._

_“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t tell your friend classified information that could potentially threaten us or our loved ones and you’ll be fine. I’m not gonna clean up after you if Greg ends up accidentally revealing your secret identity to the world”._

_“It’s Ned. But you got it, Mr. Stark, don’t worry!”_

_“Now go get that homework done, Underoos”._

“I’m – I’m not telling Ned, I promise, sir, I promise –“

“Jesus, May. What will we do?”, Happy asked, arms crossed above his chest, biting at one of his fingers nervously.

“I don’t know”, she sighed, her face contorted in a permanent state of grief and worry. “I’m doing everything I can think of, but his biology is different from ours. What we need is to take him somewhere we can monitor his vitals –“

“We just barely muffled those ‘Peter Parker is Spider-Man’ rumors. We can’t risk taking him to a hospital and having the med team find out about his metabolism –“

“I _know_ , Happy”, May interrupted him with an exasperated sigh. “But I can’t keep giving him pills that have no effect without at least running some blood tests to find out what’s wrong. His fever is stupid high, it isn’t coming down no matter what I do, and if it keeps climbing up, we’ll _have_ to take him to a hospital”, she turned to give Happy a wary look. The man took a deep breath and looked away for a moment.

“All right. Did he say anything to you? At all? About what happened to him; what got him like this?”, he asked, trying not to focus on the way Peter was whimpering and wiggling on the bed, teeth gritted and face red.

“Nothing”, May shook her head, brow furrowed in concern. “He was no longer coherent when I got here. He barely even talked to me before he passed out again”.

Happy sighed, running a nervous hand through his hair. May stood up suddenly, a determined look on her face.

“Can you keep an eye on him for me?”

Happy frowned.

“Why? Where are you going?”

She looked at Peter again before turning to Happy, her lips forming a stern line.

“If he can’t go to a hospital, then I’ll have to bring the hospital to him. His fever can’t get any higher, and I can’t keep feeding him medicine without knowing what’s wrong with him. I’ll go get us some supplies to monitor him and make sure –“

“May –“

“I’ll be right back, Happy”, she cut him off, serious. “But I can’t leave him alone. Please, just – just watch him for me, ok?”

“How are you even going to get these supplies?”, Happy raised an eyebrow at her.

“I have some friends from the hospital who can help –“

“No, May”, Happy interrupted her again, placing two hands on her shoulders. “Let me handle this, ok? I’ll call doctor Cho, see if she’s in town”.

“Who’s doctor Cho?”, May frowned.

“An old friend of Tony’s. She can help, she’s extremely competent. _And_ she’s used to dealing with superpowered people, she isn’t a risk for Peter’s identity”, he nodded reassuringly.

“And what if she isn’t in town? What if it takes her hours to get here while Peter –?”, May trailed off, exasperated. Her eyes were painted with worry and desperation. Happy squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.

“Then we’ll find another way. Don’t worry, ok? Peter will be fine, we’ll find a way to help him. He’s tougher than he looks”, he told her, grabbing his phone and already dialing up Cho’s number.

May nodded, biting down at one of her nails as she watcher her nephew squirm and whimper on the bed, lost in his own head as he burned up with fever.

_“Hey, Mr. Stark, I’m cold”._

_“What, the little spider can’t handle a bit of winter?”_

_“Hey!”_

_“I’m teasing you. Jeez, don’t arachnids have any sense of humor?”_

_“Not when we’re cold, we don’t”_

_“All right, grumpy. Friday, turn the heat up, please”._

_“Right away, boss”._

_“See? All you gotta do is ask nicely, Pete”._

_“I did ask nicely”._

_“You just said you were cold”._

_“Uh. Yeah, you’re right. Sorry”._

_“Once again – I’m teasing you. Try to keep up, Parker”._

_“You don’t exactly make it easy, Mr. Stark!”_

_“Since when do you like things easy, Mr. Dive-Headfirst-Into-Any-Sort-Of-Trouble?”_

_“Fair point”._

_“Yeah, that’s a habit”._

“F-Friday, turn t-the heat up, p-p-please…”

“So?”

“She’s not in town”.

“Where is she?”

Happy sighed grievously, turning his head away.

“China”.

“Oh, Jesus, Happy”, May breathed out shakily, lowering her head and covering her face with two hands.

“Calm down. Let me try someone else”.

“No”, she shook her head, standing up again. “I’m not going to waste any more time”.

“I can try to call –“

“You call whoever you want to call”, May squeezed his shoulder, a determined look on her face. “But while you do it, I’ll go fetch the supplies just in case. If whoever it is can come, great. If not, I’ll handle this myself”.

Happy stared at her, phone in hands.

“All right”.

“All right. Keep an eye on him, call me if anything changes. I’ll try to be quick about it”.

“Ok. And hey, May”, Happy called after her, just as she was about to leave the room. She stopped in her tracks to look at him. “Be careful, ok?”

She nodded before leaving silently.

“You know – Y-You know I don’t like pineapples on p-pizza –“, Peter muttered on the bed, teeth rattling.

“Yeah, buddy. I know”, Happy sighed, sitting at the edge of the bed and squeezing the boy’s unnaturally hot hand.

“T-Thanks… T-Thanks Mr. Stark. T-That’s g-g-great…”, Peter sighed, turning his head away and making the damp cloths on his forehead fall off. Happy took them and put them back in place before dialing the number on his phone.

“Hi. Hey, Bruce. Yeah, it’s Happy. Listen, do you happen to be in town? No, not really. You remember Stark’s kid? Yeah, the Spider one. Peter. Yeah, he’s not doing so good. He has this crazy fever that refuses to break, and it’s climbing up and we don’t know what to do. No, we can’t, remember? Yeah, because of that whole media thing. I know you understand better than anyone the need to protect a secret identity, so maybe if you could… Yeah. Yeah. All right. I’ll give you the address. Thank you”.

_“Oi, Underoos! You with me?”_

_“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Stark, I’m good, I’m good!”_

_“You sure?”_

_“Yeah, ten o’clock, ten o’clock, ten o’clock!”_

_“Oh shit! He almost got me. Thanks, kid”._

_“You’re welcome Mr. Sta-aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”_

_“Hey! Give me back my spiderling!”_

_“Let go, let go, let go, let go, let go –!”_

_“Calm down, kid, I’ve got you!”_

_“Holy shiiiiiiit –“_

_“Hey, no swearing!”_

_“But this huge alien is about to – ouch, ouch! – drop me!”_

_“Fine, but don’t let your aunt know. And I said I’ve got you! You can let go!”_

_“No!”_

_“I’ll catch you, Pete, just let go –“_

_“Oh my god oh my god oh my god –“_

_“Now, Peter!”_

_“Ahh!”_

_“Gotcha, kid”._

_“Holy cow, Mr. Stark, I didn’t even see him coming –“_

_“Yeah, I know”._

_“ – And your rescue maneuver was like, super cool, how do you even do that twisty thing while you’re flying? That’s awesome. Ah, man, I wish my suit had boosters. There was this one time I was at the suburbs, right, and there were no tall buildings around to shoot my webs at, ya know, and I had to run all the way through the houses ‘til the next tall building showed up because the web couldn’t reach it and it’s like, I’m Spider-Man, you know, not Running-Man or whatever, so what’s the point –“_

_“Peter”._

_“Huh?”_

_“Look at me”._

_“I’m looking atchya”._

_“No, kid, you’re looking at the empty space beside me. Is your vision doubled?”_

_“Huh?”_

_“Are you seeing two of me?”_

_“There’s two of you?!”_

_“There shouldn’t be. Are there?”_

_“Uh, now that you mention it, yeah, mayhaps?”_

_“Mayhaps?”_

_“Yeah”._

_“Jesus, kid. Friday, tell me his stats”._

_“I detect a mild concussion, a twisted ankle and three bruised ribs. Medical attention is advised”._

_“All right, you’re done for the day. You’re going to the tower to get checked over”._

_“But aliens –“_

_“I’ll take care of the aliens”._

_“No! I can still help!”_

_“Peter”._

_“Huh?”_

_“I’m not joking around this time. Go back to the tower. If I find out you didn’t, you and I are going to have a serious talk about taking orders in the field. In case your concussed spider-brain can’t understand that, it means I’ll ground you”._

_“But I can help!”_

_“I know you can, but I’ve got this. I don’t need you here, I need you to take care of yourself, ok?”_

_“But –“_

_“Pete, I’m –“, an impatient sigh. “Just – go. Ok, kid?_ Now _. I’m not joking around”._

_“Mr. –“_

_“Now! Or I’ll call Aunt May!”_

_“Ok, all right”._

_“And try to watch your 10 o’clock instead of mine from now on, for god’s sake”._

“So you don’t know what happened to him?”

“Nope”.

“He didn’t say anything?”

“His aunt will be back any minute now, so she can tell you better. From what she said, he was already like this when she arrived. He didn’t talk much, and now he’s been –“

Bruce stopped examining Peter at Happy’s hesitation, turning to look at the man.

“He’s been what?”, he frowned.

“Well. We think he’s hallucinating”, Happy admitted. Bruce nodded pensively.

“From the state of his fever, that’s not too uncommon. And you tried putting him in water but that had no effect, right?”

“Yes. It only made it worse”, Happy nodded. Bruce turned to look at him again.

“It made it worse?”, he frowned. Happy blinked and crossed his arms again.

“Yeah, I mean – he was struggling a lot, and that was when he started calling for –“, he trailed off, chest tight.

Bruce kept staring at him, clearly clueless, waiting for him to go on.

“For… Tony”, he concluded.

Bruce’s face dropped and he looked away.

“Oh”.

“Yeah. It’s been a tough night”.

Bruce went back to examining him quietly.

“H-Hey…”, Peter mumbled on the bed.

“Oh. Hi, Peter. Are you with us?”, Bruce asked, taking the opportunity of Peter’s eyes opening slightly to shine a light at them and check his pupils. Peter squinted and tried to turn away.

“Ouch”.

“Yes, buddy, I know it hurts, but you have to sit still, all right?”

“No”, he mumbled, shying away from Bruce’s touch.

“Do you know who I am?”, Bruce tried to ask, realizing Peter wasn’t used to seeing him in his Professor Hulk form. Peter shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, looking like he hadn’t even comprehended the Hulk was in his bedroom in order to freak out over it.

“W-Where’s Mr. Stark?”, he asked, hands shaking and lower lip quivering. Happy sighed, closing his eyes in grief. This was becoming too much for him – he thought Peter had already passed the denial stage.

“Peter…”, Bruce said, trying to sound as gentle as possible. “You have to stay calm, ok?”

“H-He said he’d turn the heat up, b-but I’m still f-freezing and he isn’t b-back yet”.

Bruce looked at Happy. Happy bowed his head, his chest tight and his lungs heavy.

“Is he gone? Is he – Is he g-gone?”

“Peter, try to focus on me, ok? Can you tell me what happened to you?”

“D-Did I mess up?”

“No, Peter. You didn’t mess up. You’re doing great, I just need you to tell me what got you like this”.

Peter stared at Bruce through a half-lidded glassy gaze, blinking sluggishly.

“C-Can’t”, he settled for saying, closing his eyes again and turning his head away while he grimaced in discomfort. “It’s confidential”.

“Why is it confidential?”

“I c-can’t tell Ned about it”.

“I’m not Ned. I’m Bruce Banner. Do you know who I am?”

“I p-promised Mr. Stark I’d only tell N-Ned if… If I had p-permission…”

“It’s ok. You can tell me, I’m an Avenger”.

_You’re an Avenger now_

“Y-Yeah? Are on Titan yet?”

“What?”

“Titan”, Happy explained from where he was watching from the corner of the room. “It’s where he…”, he sighed. “It’s where it happened”.

“Oh”, Bruce said simply.

“I gotta help”, Peter tried to sit up, but Bruce gently pushed him back with no effort. “Gotta g-go, Mr. Stark n-needs me… He said I’m an Avenger n-now…”

“Peter, it’s ok”, Bruce pushed him back again when he tried to sit up once more, keeping a hand on his shoulder in order to hold him down. “You can rest, all right? It’s all settled in Titan. It’s over”.

Peter stared up at Bruce, confused.

“It is?”

“Yes, it is. We won. Now I need you to –“

_We won, Mr. Stark. We won, you did it, sir, you did it_

“S-So where’s Mr. Stark?”

Bruce sighed, lowering his head.

“Is he ok?”

“Oh, Jesus”, Happy said in a shaky voice, walking off the room. Bruce watched him go with sad eyes before turning back to Peter.

“Peter”, he said carefully, calmly. “I need you to listen to me. Ok?”

Peter looked confused, but nodded.

“Good. You have a fever. It’s pretty high. We don’t know what’s causing it, so you need to tell me what happened. Do you remember anything?”

Peter squinted his eyes, trying to concentrate. He tried to think of anything that didn’t have to do with Mr. Stark, Titan, Iron Man or aliens, because the nice green man sounded pretty urgent and Peter wanted to help. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember, for the life of him, anything that didn’t have to do with Tony and the workshop and the suits and the – and the –

There was a man, long hair, weird beard, saying weird words, and throwing something at him –

He dry-heaved and Bruce only had that as a warning before Peter turned over and vomited all over the floor, coughing and retching and barely managing to keep himself upright before he toppled to the side against the green man. And then, before he could say anything, he was out again.

_“Mr. Stark?”_

_“Hey… Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? It’s Peter…”_

_“We won, Mr. Stark. We won, Mr. Stark. We won, you did it, sir. You did it”._

_“I’m sorry, Tony”._

“Jesus, what happened?”

“He vomited and passed out”.

“Is he ok?”

“I don’t think he’s sick, Happy”.

“What?”

“I don’t think this is physical”.

Happy squinted his eyes at Bruce.

“What, you’re saying he’s got an emotional fever or something?”

“No, I’m saying this could be caused by something else. He doesn’t have any injuries, internal or external, that could have caused this. I’d need to run a blood test to be absolutely sure, but something tells me he doesn’t have any sort of infection, either. He only got sick when I made him think about what happened”.

Happy shook his head.

“He – He could be traumatized, or –“

“All he’s got is a bunch of bruises, and yet his fever keeps climbing up dangerously. He isn’t even beaten that badly, his nose will be fine and the cuts are already healing. The damage to his ribs isn’t substantial, and it definitely isn’t enough to cause a 104 degrees fever.”.

“What are you saying?”, Happy asked, nervous.

“I need to get him to a lab so I can run that blood test”.

“All right”, Happy nodded, already grabbing his phone to call May. “Your lab?”

“Yeah, it’s closer”, Bruce shrugged.

“Ok. I’m gonna tell his aunt”.

“I can take him myself, it’ll be faster”, Bruce said, already cradling the limp, burning Peter into his big green arms. The boy looked smaller than usual like that. “You two meet me there”.

“S-Sorry, sir, I d-didn’t see the vulture g-guy…”, Peter slurred as his fingers clung to the front of Bruce’s shirt.

“Ok. All right”, Happy nodded, watching as the Hulk nodded at him and jumped off Peter’s bedroom window, carrying the sick boy in his arms.

_“Thanks”._

_“Don’t mention it, kid”._

_“No, I mean… I’m – I’m serious, Mr. Stark. Thank you”._

_“It’s no big deal”._

_“I…”_

_“What?”_

_“It’s… Nothing”._

_“Spit it out, kiddo”._

_“It’s just… I’m grateful”._

_“I’m also grateful. For a lot of things. I’m a billionaire, after all. You wanna be a bit more specific?”_

_“I’m… I’m grateful to know you”._

_Silence._

_“I mean, you’re… You’re Tony Stark and… And all I am is a kid from Queens”._

_“Kid”._

_“Hm?”_

_“This is ridiculously cheesy”._

_“Yeah… Yeah, I know”._

_“And I’m grateful to know you too”._

_“C’mon, Mr. Stark, you don’t have to –“_

_“Are you second-guessing me, Parker?”_

_“… No”._

_“Good. Because I mean it”._

_A pause._

_“You’re a good kid. I’m glad I got to recruit you”._

_Peter smiled. He felt happy, like he always did whenever Uncle Ben took him to pet the dogs at the park._

_“Let’s go back to work, kid. Break’s over”._

Happy and May arrived together at Bruce’s lab, looking frantic and worried. Peter was lying on a medical bed, hooked up to an IV and to several wires that monitored his heartbeat and vitals. Bruce looked up at them as they arrived.

“Here”, May said, handing him a large bag with the supplies she had retrieved. “You probably have this stuff already, but I had already picked them and I figured you could use some help”.

“I can, thank you”, Bruce smiled at her, taking the bag.

“How is he?”, she asked, approaching Peter’s, sleeping form. Even though he was out cold, his face was still grimacing in discomfort.

“He’s stable. I already took some blood and I’ll have the results in a while”.

“Ok. Did he wake up again?”, she asked.

“Not really. He’s been muttering and mumbling, but he hasn’t regained consciousness”.

“Oh, god”.

“Hey”, Bruce told her, placing a disproportionally big hand on her shoulder. “We’ll fix this, ok?”

“Yeah, ok”, she nodded, but her face didn’t look calmer at all.

“Did he tell you what happened?”, Bruce asked her, going back to his lab desk.

“No, he was already like this when I got home”, she shook her head and sniffed.

“But did he say anything at all?”, Happy stepped in, worried. “Where he was before he went home, what he was doing, anything?”

May frowned, shaking her head.

“All he said was ‘patrol’, then he passed out”, she shrugged.

“Wait”, Bruce intervened. “He said he got hurt in the patrol?”

“I said ‘can you tell me what happened?’ and he said ‘patrol’, then he said he wanted to sleep and passed out”, May explained, nervous. “I thought something might have happened to him in the patrol, but when I checked him over, I found nothing, just a bunch of bruises. Nothing that could explain – this”, she gestured at her nephew.

“Karen”, Happy said.

“What?”, May frowned at him.

“Karen. God, I’m so stupid”, he shook his head. “We should have asked Karen. The AI in his suit, Karen”, he explained to May. “If someone knows what’s happened to him, it’s her”.

“Oh”, her eyes widened. “Oh! Do you have – Do you have access to her? Can you –?”, she pointed at Happy’s phone.

“No”, Happy shook his head, grabbing the device anyway.

“So we need to go back to the apartment and ask her! I left his suit there!”, May exclaimed.

“No, no, we wouldn’t be able to talk to her”, Happy shook his head, dialing something on his phone and taking it to his ear. “The only one who can access her is Peter, but I’ve got an idea – Hi? Hi, Pepper? Yeah, it’s me”, he greeted at the phone. “Yeah, listen, I hate to do this but I need a favor –“

_“Previously on: Peter screws the pooch, I told you to stay from this. Instead, you hacked a multimillion-dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do”._

_“Is everyone ok?”_

_“No thanks to you”._

_“No thanks to me? Those weapons were around there and I tried to tell you about it, but you didn’t listen! None of this would have happened if you’d just listened to me! If you even cared, you’d actually be here”._

“Ok, try it again now”.

“Still the same message”.

“Shit, fine. I’ll just ask her to send it over to my phone –“

“W-Where’s – Where’s…”

“Peter? Darling?”, May approached her nephew, grabbing one of his hands. Peter’s eyes blinked open sluggishly, still looking as glassy and feverish as they had been before. “Can you hear me?”

“M-Mr. Stark?”, Peter asked.

May turned to share a glance with Happy, who was pale and looked like he was about to be sick any moment now. Bruce was too busy trying to figure out how to process the data Friday was sending them to pay the pair any attention.

“Peter, dear”, May told him, running her fingers through his hair soothingly. “Just focus on yourself, now, ok?”

“N-No, I gotta tell him – I gotta t-tell him I’m – I’m –“

“Peter”, May interrupted him, offering him a tight smile. “Please. Listen to me, ok?”

Peter looked at her as if it was the first time he was seeing her in days.

“M-M-May? W-What’s going on?”

“You’re sick, dear”, May said, tears welling up in her eyes. “You’ve got a terrible fever and we’re trying to bring it down, but for us to do that you need to tell us what happened, ok? Can you do that for me, please?”

Peter’s mouth opened and closed like a fish as he tried to make sense of what he was being told.

“Can you tell me what happened, honey?”, May tried again, fighting against her tears. “Please?”

“I – I’ll –“, Peter tried, lower lip quivering from the cold he was feeling, even though his entire body was burning up. “I’ll b-b-be ok”.

“Yes, you will, Peter”, May nodded at him encouragingly. “Because I’m taking care of you. _We’re_ taking care of you. Ok? And you’ll tell me what happened to you, right? What happened in your patrol?”

“There – T-There w-was a…”, he gasped, shaking all over. Peter was extremely pale, with the sole exception of his cheeks, which here flushed red from the high fever. His eyes were still unfocused, but they were fixed on May, pooling with tears and shining with fever. His teeth were still rattling. “A m-m-man…”

“Ok, a man. What did he do to you? Did you know him?”, May pressured, desperate to get something out of her sick nephew.

“May”, Bruce told her with a warning in his voice, stepping into the conversation. “Maybe give him some space –“

“We need to know what happened!”, May protested.

“Yeah, but I’m already pulling Friday’s data and Peter’s barely hanging on”, Bruce explained. “Last time he talked about it –“

“He threw up and passed out”, Happy provided. “Bruce thinks it might have to do with whatever happened”.

May stared at Peter, who was shaking harder than ever and whose eyes were darting across the ceiling, sightless and confused. He looked completely out of it.

“I n-need to talk to M-Mr. Stark”, he slurred, the tears that were pooling in his eyes escaping and running down his temples. “P-Please, let me talk to Mr. Stark. Please”.

“Peter…”, May sighed.

“You can’t talk to Mr. Stark, Peter. I’m sorry”, Happy was the one who told him, his face serious.

Peter turned his head towards Happy at the sound of his voice, glassy eyes widening as he searched for the man, even though he was standing right in front of him.

“Happy? H-Happy, are y-you here?”, he asked, the childish relief in his voice making Happy’s chest feel even tighter.

“Yeah, kid, I’m here”, he said, stepping closer to the bed. Peter immediately grabbed the front of his shirt as soon as he was in reach, fever-hazy eyes fixed on him.

“Happy”, he said desperately. His eyes were wide and scared, clearly disoriented.

“Kid. You gotta calm down, ok?”, Happy told him patiently, holding the hands that were pulling him closer and trying to coax them into loosening their grip.

“H-Happy. P-Please. C-Can you tell Mr. Stark I n-need to see him?”

“Peter…”

“I know h-he’s m-mad, but it’s important”, Peter added.

Everyone paused.

“What?”, Happy asked.

“P-Please…”

“What do you mean he’s mad, Peter? Why would he be mad?”, Happy’ frowned.

“B-Because of the Vulture guy, h-he told me n-not to chase him, b-but I did, and he d-d-dropped the b-building on me… Thanks f-for finding me, by the w-way…”

“Jesus Christ”, Happy sighed, shaking his head and staring at Bruce with urgency in his eyes. “What’ve you got, big guy?”

“Happy?”, May asked, frowning from where she was standing at the other side of Peter’s bed. “What’s he talking about?”

“It’s nothing”, Happy tried to reassure her, knowing that was not the best occasion to have that conversation. “I’ll explain later”.

“I’m almost done here. Friday’s already pulling the data from Karen”, Bruce announced over his shoulder.

“Peter”, Happy said, trying to sound as calm as possible. “Peter. Listen to me. Tony’s not mad at you, ok?”, he raised his eyebrows at the kid.

“Huh?”

“He’s not mad. So you don’t have to worry, ok?”

“H-He’s n-not… mad?”, Peter frowned, as if that didn’t sound quite right.

_If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it_

“He’s not. I promise”, Happy said. “He… He loves you, kid”.

Peter stared up at Happy with confused, unfocused eyes.

“Ok”, he said, before relaxing and going back to sleep.

_“Where are you?”_

_“Huh?”_

_“You were miles away, Underoos. Is my little lecture on holotables boring you?”_

_“No! No, no, of course not, sir, it’s just –“_

_“What did we talk about?”_

_“Huh?”_

_“The calling me ‘sir’ thing”._

_“Oh. Yeah. Right. Sorry Mr. Stark”._

_“I’m not happy with that either, but I’ll take what I can get. Where were you?”_

_“I was… You know. Just thinking about… stuff”._

_“Very specific. Care to elaborate?”_

_Silence._

_“I was thinking about my uncle”._

_A beat._

_“Oh. Right”._

_“Yeah”._

_“You wanna talk about it?”_

_“No, I mean, it’s ok, I don’t really –“_

_“Because I know a pretty good therapist I can send you to if you need”._

_“Oh”._

_A beat._

_“I’m just trying to break the tension, kid. C’mon”._

_“Oh”._

_“It’s ok if you don’t wanna talk. God knows I’m never talking to you about_ my _problems, but if you want to…”_

_“No, it’s ok”._

_“I was just joking before”._

_Silence._

_“I’m not really… good at this. That’s why I made that joke. Talking about feelings? Not really my thing. And I do know a pretty damn good therapist I can send you to, if that’s what you want. But – since you’re such a hardworking, dedicated spiderling – I’m willing to lend you an ear”._

_“Wow, thanks, Mr. Stark”._

_“Hey, don’t use sarcasm against me. That’s my weapon of choice”._

_“Yeah, I suppose it is”._

_“I mean it, kid. What’s in your head?”_

_A pause._

_“He… died”._

_“Hmm”._

_“Because of me”._

_Another pause, pregnant._

_“What do you mean?”_

_Peter sighed._

_“I had just gotten my powers. May was struggling with her job, Ben couldn’t really find anything permanent. We didn’t have a lot of money, and they had to take care of me on the top of everything, so – so I thought I should… You know, help”._

_“Hmm”._

_“There was this place where people fought for money. So I signed up”._

_“Wow”._

_“Yeah, I know”._

_“You? In a fight ring?”_

_“Mr. Stark”._

_“All right, carry on”._

_“So, I won all the fights –“_

_“Because of your unfair spider-privileges”._

_“Yes. And… They didn’t want to pay me for it”._

_“Wow”._

_“And at the same time they refused to give me the money, there was this guy who arrived and started robbing the place and… Well. I thought that was karma, you know? They were stealing from me, and now they were being stolen from. It was only fair”._

_“Hmm”._

_“And I could have stopped that guy. He walked right past me. I could have – I could have done something”._

_“But you didn’t”._

_“I didn’t”._

_Silence._

_“When he walked off, he needed a car to run away with the money. And I had told Uncle Ben I was going to the library, to study. We had a big fight before that. I wasn’t really talking to him, but he gave me a ride anyway. And he – he was waiting for me. To give me a ride home”._

_Tony was silent._

_“And the guy… He… He shot him. To get his car”._

_An eternity passed._

_“You never told me that”._

_“I never told anyone”._

_“Not even your cute aunt?”_

_“Mr. Stark”._

_A sigh._

_“Why are you telling me this, Peter?”_

_Silence._

_“Because… Because you need to know. If – If you really want to trust me and make me a hero, you – you need to know the truth about me. You need to know what I’ve done”._

_Tony chuckled. Peter stared at him, a little offended by the reaction._

_“Wow. I mean, I don’t think you could say_ more _wrong things in a sentence if you tried”._

_“Mr. –“_

_“Peter. Listen to me”._

_Peter listened._

_“First of all, kid, what happened to your uncle wasn’t your fault”._

_“Mr. –“_

_“Zip it, Underoos. I’m serious. I’m the last person who can scold you for – guilt complexes or whatever – but believe me. Not your fault. And it’s not like me telling you so will make the feeling of guilt magically go away, god, no, but even if you_ want _to keep blaming yourself for what happened to him – it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person”._

_Peter lowered his head, his lips forming a stern line._

_“You made a mistake. You didn’t step up. But it wasn’t you who pulled the trigger”._

_“But I could have stopped the person who did”._

_“And you didn’t”._

_“And I didn’t”._

_“And can you change that?”_

_A pause._

_“No”._

_“Yeah. What can you actually do?”_

_Peter looked at him._

_“I mean, ok, kid. Think about it. What have you learned from this?”_

_“I can… I should try to be better”._

_“Yeah. And you know what you’ve been doing? Ever since I met you?”_

_Peter frowned._

_“You’ve been doing_ amazing _, kid. Repeatedly outdoing yourself, and you should take this opportunity because I’m not one to go around giving off free compliments. Except in your case – they’re well-earned”._

_“Mr. Stark”._

_“What?”_

_Peter looked away, fighting back tears._

_“If you’re not gonna say anything, I’m gonna keep going. Second – I didn’t make you a hero, Peter. You did that on your own”._

_Peter looked at him again._

_“When I found you in that ugly onesie –“_

_“Wasn’t a onesie”._

_“Doing backflips and saving the day at Queens, you were already a hero. And it wasn’t because of the spider bite, or because you had muscles, or because you were strong as hell – it was because it was_ you _, Pete. All this old man here did was upgrade something that was already good”._

_Peter’s hands fiddled with the hem of his sweater._

_“Because you_ are _good, Pete. Golly, you’re probably one of the best people I know, and you’re like 10”._

_“I’m 15, Mr. Stark. And did you just say ‘golly’?”_

_“Don’t interrupt me. Last of all: do you trust me?”_

_“What?”_

_“You heard me. Me, Tony Edward Stark, Iron Man, genius, playboy, yadda yadda yadda. Do you trust me?”_

_“Of course I trust you, Mr. Stark!”_

_“And do you really think I would have chosen you if I didn’t think you were a good kid with a good heart who’s inherently a good person?”_

_Peter averted Tony’s eyes._

_“That’s why I’m telling you all this, Mr. Stark. So you’d know, before… Before you decided to trust me”._

_“Peter. I already trust you. And I already knew”._

_Their eyes met._

_“Before I went after you. Back at that whole… Cap thing. I knew”._

_“You… did?”_

_“Yeah, and I know that sounds a bit creepy, but honestly, kid. Do you think I would have given you a multimillion-dollar suit and all those resources if I didn’t think you were a good person? Do you think I would let you hang around at my tower, at my workshop, if I didn’t care about you and thought you’re the nicest kid ever?”_

_“Did you just say I’m the nicest kid ever?”_

_“Someone needs to clear up their ears. Yes, Underoos, we’re having a moment here, try to keep up. And don’t take that as a compliment – you’re too nice for your own good”._

_“What’s that supposed to mean?!”_

_“Peter. Come on. You help old ladies cross the street and save cats from trees. Next thing I know, you’ll be giving all your money to the homeless and going to live in a tent”._

_“Hey, that’s not true!”_

_“Yeah? You wanna tell me about that time you gave a homeless guy all your money and had to walk back home on foot because you didn’t have enough cash for the subway?”_

_“Karen, you snitch!”_

_“She’s just doing her job”._

_“Still!”_

_“My point is – you’re a good kid, Pete. No matter how bad you feel about what happened, no matter how much you regret not stepping up that one time – that doesn’t change who you are. So yeah, keep trying to be better etc. etc., but just know: you’ve got nothing to make up for”._

_Peter gave him a tiny smile, not looking up._

_“Thanks, Mr. Stark”._

_“Don’t break a sweat over it, kid. You wanna go back to our holotables now or is it too much trouble for your teenage brain?”_

_“I don’t know. Isn’t it_ your _time to share something personal?”_

_“You’re getting too cocky, Parker”._

_“You’re the one who said I was the best kid ever! I’ve got rights, now”._

_“I said you were the_ nicest _kid, not the best kid”._

_“Are you saying I’m not the best kid, then?”_

_“You keep that up and I’m grounding you”._

_“Oh, come on!”_

“We need to turn him over”, Bruce announced nervously as soon as he finished watching the video of Karen’s footage.

“Why? What’s wrong with him? Did you find out?”, May asked, but helped Happy turn the unconscious Peter on his side.

“If this is what I think it is, then it’s beyond my help”, was all Bruce said as he stepped in to take a look at Peter’s back.

“What?”, Happy exclaimed, at the same time May asked: “What do you mean ‘beyond your help’?!”

“Means we’ll need to call someone else in”, Bruce said simply, prodding at one of Peter’s bruises. “Someone who knows about mystical arts”.

Happy and May shared a look.

“Is that Mr. Strange? Are you talking about Mr. Strange?”, May asked, holding Peter’s shoulders. Bruce prodded at one particular bruise right at the base of Peter’s spine, and the boy hissed, glassy eyes shooting open and looking around frantically.

“Wha’s goin’ on?”, he slurred, trying to shuffle away from May holding his shoulders and Happy holding his legs. “Huh? Wha’?”

“Peter!”, May exclaimed. “Are you with me?!”

“Sorry ‘m late, I’m coming”, Peter slurred. “J-Just five seconds, May”.

“He’s still out of it”, Happy commented. “What’s that?”, he nodded at the bruise the man had just prodded.

“I think – Peter was hit by a spell”, Bruce nodded. May squinted at him.

“A spell? What do you mean a spell?”, she asked.

“That’s why we need Doctor Strange”, Bruce said, still examining Peter’s bruise. “I recognized the necklace the man who attacked him was wearing in the recording Karen sent. That’d explain why there are no physical causes for Peter’s fever”.

“Ok, but spells are bullshit, right?”, May asked, looking at Happy for support. Happy shrugged. “I mean. It’s _spells_ ”.

“You’re talking to a green guy who has 7 PhDs and you came back to life after spending five years dead because a genocidal alien turned you to dust”, Bruce pointed out. “I don’t think anything can be called ‘bullshit’ nowadays anymore”.

_“Mr. Stark –“_

_“Not now, Peter”._

_“But I –“_

_“I said not now”._

_A pause._

_“I just wanted to apologize”._

_“I know. And I’m not having this conversation with you”._

_“Why not?”_

_“Why? You’re really asking me_ why _?”_

_“I think I have the right to know why you’ve been ignoring me for the past four days!”_

_“Oh, allow me to refresh your memory, then. How about that one time when I told you to stay out of a fight, you dove into it anyway, got five ribs bruised, one of them broken, and a concussion that could have resulted in permanent damage? Permanent means for life, in case you don’t recall. Does that ring any bells?”_

_“I know what permanent means, Mr. Stark. I also know that I heal fast, since you seem to forget about it all the time!”_

_“Watch it, kid”._

_“You see?_ That’s _the problem! You’re always calling me kid! You’re always acting like I can’t take care of myself! I can lift a truck with my pinky finger, but god forbid I try to help you in a fight!”_

 _“Newsflash, Spider-Boy: I didn’t_ need _your help”._

_“You were outnumbered!”_

_“I had it under control”._

_“You could have been killed!”_

_“I wouldn’t_ be _killed! I was wearing a suit, there was backup coming –“_

_“I was backup!”_

_“No, you were_ not! _You’re just a kid who doesn’t know any better and who has some serious self-preservation issues and problems with authority –“_

_“Yeah, and I’m also the kid who saved your life!”_

_“And who almost got killed in the process!”_

_“I told you, I heal fast! That’s part of my spider-power!”_

_“Your spider-power doesn’t make you immortal, Peter!”_

_“Having suits and backup doesn’t make you immortal, either! Taking risks is part of the job, you know that better than anyone! We’re both superheroes!”_

_“_ I’m _the superhero, you’re a trainee”._

_“That’s not what you told me last week!”_

_“Yeah, you know what I also told you last week? That I care about you. You shouldn’t take risks when there is no one in danger! You can’t just throw your life away over nothing, Jesus, kid –“_

_“_ You _were in danger!”_

_“I had it! Under! Control!”_

_“What, so was I supposed to just stand there and watch you die?”_

_“If that was what it took to keep you safe, then yes!”_

_“You know I couldn’t do that! I can’t just_ do nothing _and watch you get killed!”_

 _“Oh, yeah? Why, because you’ve been there already? Grow up, kid, we_ all _lost something! It doesn’t give you a free pass to act that reckless just because you’ve got issues! I had it under control and you got yourself hurt over nothing, so just face the fact that you screwed the pooch again!”_

_Peter stared at him, breath hitching in his throat._

_Tony finally met his eyes, facing the damage of his words._

_“Shit. Shit, Pete, let me – I didn’t mean –“_

_“You know what, Mr. Stark? I don’t even know why you care so much I got hurt”._

_And then Peter left._

“You’re right. It was a spell”, Stephen said, finishing his analysis of Peter’s back. “A nasty one, by the look of it”.

“And can you help him?”, May asked, nervous. “Can you make him better?”

He spared her a glance, before staring at Peter again. The boy was unconscious yet restless, muttering and shifting on the bed, sweating like crazy and still burning up with fever.

“Yes. But I will need to take him back to the Sanctum”, he announced and, before she or Happy could say anything, he raised a hand and added: “Alone”.

“What? Why?”, May frowned. Happy placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Guys”, Bruce stepped in, looking serious. “You can trust Strange. He helped us save the world”.

“Yes, I know, thank you for your service and all that”, May said, worried. “But why can’t I go with my boy? I need to be there for him!”

“The procedure I have to do to cancel the spell can’t be done around bystanders. Don’t worry, Peter will be fine. I’ll give him back to you in a few hours”.

“Wait!”, May said at the same time Doctor Strange opened a portal in the middle of Bruce’s lab. He looked at her. “You – You take good care of him, all right? And call me when you’re done so I can pick him up!”

Doctor Strange nodded, pushed Peter’s bed through the portal, and disappeared.

A face with a goatee stared down at him.

“Parker. Can you hear me?”

Peter squinted, trying to make his blurry eyes focus.

“M-Mr. Stark?”

“It’s Doctor Strange. I’m going to make it better, but this will be uncomfortable for you. Try to keep yourself grounded”.

Peter was sobbing on the bed, tied up by magical bonds, squirming and desperately trying to free himself even though he wasn’t conscious. Stephen sighed, carrying on with the procedure.

The spell that had hit Peter was a particularly nasty one in a class of lower spells. From the video Bruce had shown him, Stephen hadn’t recognized the perpetuator, but he shouldn’t be too hard to trace, especially if he was still anywhere near Queens.

The purpose of the spell was to make the victim face the person they had wronged the most, reliving through memories that led up to the moment of wrongdoing. Originally, the spell was used to make criminals and traitors become hyperaware of their crimes before execution; as time passed, the execution was removed from the process and the spell was adapted to be used as a torture device. People would get stuck in their own heads, living the past all over again and facing their deepest regrets, until their bodies expired from the trauma and the fever.

Aware of the recent events involving Spider-Man, it wasn’t too hard to deduce the man who attacked Peter must have been one of the (few) Mysterio fans left. He had probably been trying to make Spider-Man feel bad for the alleged assassination of Mysterio – but the plan had clearly backfired, since, apparently, the person Peter thought he had failed was…

“Mr. Stark”, Peter sobbed, struggling against his bonds. “M-Mr. Stark. Please. I’m s-sorry, sir. Let me g-get to him. I n-need to talk to him. P-Please, Mr. Stark, I’m s-sorry – I’m sorry – I’m sorry –“

“Easy, now, Peter”, Stephen said, uncharacteristically reassuring, as he continued to carefully maneuver the counter-spell.

That was the nasty thing about the spell Peter had been hit with. It only worked efficiently on _good_ people – people who actually felt guilt for their actions and who were haunted by them. People who felt no remorse were left unharmed by it.

Stephen didn’t know why on earth Peter would feel so guilty about what had happened to Tony, but he had a hint.

And he also had a vague impression that just removing the spell wouldn’t fix the issue.

_“Oh my gosh. You would not believe what’s been going on. Do you remember when we were in space? And I got all dusty? And I must have passed out, because I woke up and you were gone, but Doctor Strange was there, right? And he was like: ‘it’s been five years, come on, they need us’, and then he started doing the yellow-sparkly thing that he does all the time –“_

_“Hold on, kid, hug me”._

_“What are you doing?”_

_They hug. For the first time ever._

_For the last time ever._

_“Huh. This is nice”._

_“So… You’re the spider…ling. Crime-fighting spider. You’re Spider-Boy?”_

_“S-Spider-Man”._

_“Not in that onesie, you’re not”._

_“It’s not a onesie. I don’t believe this. I was actually having a really good day today, you know, Mr. Stark? Didn’t miss my train, this perfectly good DVD player was just sitting there, and… Algebra test – nailed it”._

_“Who else knows? Anybody?”_

_“Nobody”._

_“Not even your… unusually attractive aunt?”_

_“No. No…_ _No, no, no. If she knew, she would freak out, and when she freaks out, I freak out…”_

_“You know what I think is really cool? This webbing. That tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?”_

_“I did”._

_“Climbing walls, how you doing that? Adhesive gloves?”_

_“It's a long story. I was...”_

_“Lordy! Can you even see in these?”_

_“Yes, I can.”_

_“Ooh, I'm blind!”_

_“I can see in those. Okay? It's just that when whatever happened, happened... it's like my senses have been dialed to 11. There's way too much input, so they just kinda help me focus”._

_“You're in dire need of an upgrade. Systemic, top to bottom, hundred-point restoration. That's why I'm here.”_

_“You screwed the pooch hard, bigtime. But then you did the right thing. Took the dog to the free clinic, you raised the hybrid puppies... All right, not my best analogy. I was wrong about you. I think, with a little more mentoring... you could be a real asset to the team”._

_“Mr. Stark? I don't feel so good”._

_“You're all right”._

_“I don't... I don't know what's happening. I don't know... I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go, sir. Please. Please, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go...”_

_“…I'm sorry”._

_“Mr. Stark? Hey... Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? It's Peter. We won. Mr. Stark.... We won, Mr. Stark. We won and you did it, sir. You did it. I'm sorry... Tony...”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Uh… If… If it makes you feel better, I’m – not angry at you. Anymore”, he settled for saying, feeling more awkward than anything.
> 
> “Of course you’re not. You climbed all the way up here in the rain and called me dad”, Tony scoffed, sparing Peter a mischievous smirk that was accompanied by a wink. Peter groaned and let his head fall back, rolling his eyes, at the same time the elevator door opened and they stepped into the common room.
> 
> “I didn’t call you dad”, he argued half-heartedly as he headed to the couch and Tony, to the open kitchen.
> 
> “Whatever you say”, Tony replied from the kitchen, which wasn’t too far away. And, after a few seconds, just as Peter thought he was finally dropping the subject, he added: “… son”.

Peter wakes up to a pounding headache and a terrible thirst.

“Ouch”, is the first thing that escapes his lips, his eyes squeezing shut from the discomfort.

“’Ouch’ is an appropriate reaction”, a foreign voice says, and Peter all but jumps to his feet, his senses going haywire with all sort of red alerts. This obviously doesn’t do wonders to his already pounding head, which begins to pound even harder and makes him dizzy in revenge, but Peter breathes through it and leans a hand on the wall behind him for support. He’s looking for the source of the voice, which sounded familiar but still felt weird, since he was supposed to be lying in his bed but he’s apparently… Somewhere else.

His frantic eyes find Doctor Strange staring at him from the distance with an impassive look on his face, and all the muscles in his body relax. Peter lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and sags against the wall, confused.

“D-Doctor – Doctor Strange?”, he asks, voice raspy, and _damn_ , he’s still thirsty. He frowns in confusion, heart thumping madly inside his chest from the fright and head pounding, pounding, pounding. “What’s going on?”, he manages to croak out, sore and thirsty.

Doctor Strange approaches Peter with a glass of water in hands, giving it to the panting boy. Peter takes it with no hesitation.

“Don’t drink it too fast or you’ll make yourself sick”, the doctor advised, stoic. Peter nodded in acknowledgement before taking a large gulp, which he was careful to swallow quickly.

“Argh. Thanks, Mr. – uh, d-doctor. Uh…”, Peter looked around, squinting his eyes and trying to make sense of his surroundings. “Where… Where exactly am I…?”, he asked, hesitant.

Instead of responding, Doctor Strange turned on his heels and gestured at Peter to follow him, which the boy did, even though he was feeling tired and sore. Peter was under the impression that the man’s pace was slower than usual, maybe so that he could keep up, but if that was the case, none of them mentioned it.

“What do you remember from the last hours?”

Peter concentrated, trying to recall what could have possibly happened for him to end up at Doctor Strange’s… House? Workplace? Mystical sanctuary? But the last thing he could remember was arriving home after a shitty patrol day and going straight to bed.

“Uh… Napping?”, he shrugged almost apologetically, mind blank. Strange raised an eyebrow and also shrugged in return, an unimpressed look on his face.

“That is one way to put it. I can’t say you haven’t been mostly asleep”, he nodded.

“That doesn’t sound good, doc”, Peter frowned, suspicious. What did he mean, he’d been mostly asleep? How long had he slept for? What was _happening?_ “How did I end up… Here?”, he gestured to the space around him.

In the blink of an eye, a fancy-looking chair materialized behind Peter, and Doctor Strange gestured for him to take a seat. Then, another chair materialized right in front of Peter’s, and Doctor Strange took the seat, giving him a patient look as he leaned his elbows on the armrests and intertwined his fingers in front of himself.

Peter hesitantly lowered himself down until he was sitting on the edge of the chair, clearly uncomfortable.

“During last night’s patrol, you were hit by a spell”, Doctor Strange started. Peter frowned again, immediately confused.

“Uh… A… A spell?”, he raised an almost disbelieving eyebrow. Doctor Strange’s face remained impassive and, noticing that he was probably being serious, Peter put on a straight face and nodded. “Uh, yeah, all right. Uh… Ok. What kind of spell?”

“The bad kind”, was Doctor Strange’s immediate response. There was a small pause before he continued. “The kind that induces the victim into a fevered state and makes them live through memories involving the person who they feel like they have wronged the most”.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, what? I – I mean. T-That’s crazy”, Peter chuckled, frowning. “I mean – that’s – that’s messed up. Why would anyone do that? Fevered state?”

“And hallucinations, yes”, Doctor Strange nodded as if that was a regular occurrence.

“O…k?”, Peter’s frown deepened. “But – what, what’s the point? Why would anyone want to hit me with that… spell?”

“The point”, Doctor Strange raised an eyebrow at him, “is punishing Spider-Man for allegedly murdering Mysterio, by making him relive everything that happened and quite possibly die in the process”.

Peter stared at him with a blank face.

“But that’s not what happened”, Doctor Strange added after a few moments of silence.

Peter just stared at him.

“Because you didn’t murder Mysterio, so you never ‘wronged’ him”, he concluded with a stoic expression.

Peter could feel his face pale and his stomach twist uncomfortably as Doctor Strange said those words. Suddenly, there was nothing he wanted more than to leave that place and go home.

“Which is why we are here having this conversation, instead of having your aunt come pick you up right away like she so desperately wants to”, Doctor Strange concluded.

Peter’s eyes widened slightly. Oh, shit. Aunt May. She was probably worried sick about him.

“Uh…”, Peter swallowed dry, uncomfortably twitching on his seat and scratching at the back of his neck. “A-Actually, that might be a good idea, you know. I should probably give her a call and –“

“Peter”, Doctor Strange interrupted him shortly, in a tone that left no place for discussions. The usage of his first name was enough to make Peter sit still, staring at the man’s feet instead of his face with a nervous look on his eyes.

There was silence.

“We need to talk about this”.

Peter sighed, feeling the tears well up in his eyes. He was so tired. He closed them, taking a small calming breath.

“Everyone decided it was not their place to have this conversation with you, so I will”.

He could feel a storm was coming.

“What happened to Tony –“

Yeah, there it was.

“Please, don’t”, Peter said in a firm voice that still came off as slightly wobbly.

“ – Wasn’t your fault”, Doctor Strange concluded despite Peter’s request.

There was a small pause.

“There was nothing you could have done to stop it. Nothing _any_ of us could have done”.

Peter sniffed and continued to stare at Doctor Strange’s feet, biting down at his inner cheek in an attempt to keep himself grounded.

_If you were good enough… Maybe Tony would still be alive._

“He did what he did to save the universe. It was the only possible outcome. I know that, because I’ve seen all the others”.

“Listen, uh, I –“, Peter tried, stuttering.

“If you had intervened, Thanos would have wiped out all life in the universe”, Doctor Strange interrupted him. “Do you understand that?”

Peter lifted his head up at the ceiling and blinked, sighing, trying to rid himself of the tears pooling in his eyes, before nodding at the doctor with a serious expression.

He couldn’t tell, but Strange could see how much older Peter looked, even if he was still five years younger than he should have been.

“I know why Mr. Stark did what he did”, Peter said, his voice coming off way more wobbly than he was comfortable with. He needed to get a hold of himself, he wasn’t a little kid anymore. “But… It’s still… hard”.

“I know”, Doctor Strange nodded. Peter finally looked at him, only to find that the man’s eyes were stern with something akin to… grief.

Doctor Strange shifted on the chair, eyes fixed on Peter.

“What is it that’s lacking, Peter?”, he asked, curious. Peter frowned.

“What?”

“You have trouble moving on”, Doctor Strange pointed out. “And I don’t mean to sound insensitive – all of us have trouble moving on when a loved one dies. It’s only human. But you – I can sense there is something holding you back. Something that makes you feel like you have wronged Tony. Something that has nothing to do with saving him or not. Something that’s _lacking_ ”.

Peter stared at him, then at his feet again. He felt weird. His chest felt weird. He wanted to go home, talk to May, and take a nap. He felt like he was drowning, but there was nothing other than air surrounding him. Why did it feel so hard to breathe?

He had a feeling Doctor Strange wouldn’t let him get off that easily, no matter how crappy he was feeling.

What was the worst that could happen, anyway? He had a feeling Doctor Strange wasn’t about to mock him for telling the truth, he was too serious for that. Plus, what kind of hero would find it ok to mock a mourning kid, anyway?

(What kind of hero would lose himself in mourning for so long?)

“I never got to tell him goodbye”, Peter admitted, and though it did give him some relief to finally let it out, he still felt generally shitty and mostly breathless.

Doctor Strange kept staring at him, waiting for him to continue, but Peter couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

“I – I mean”, he continued, swallowing dry and staring at the floor. “I never – I never got to tell him goodbye. I passed out and woke up five years later, and just like that, I was in another battle, and – and, Mr. Stark was there, and he hugged me, and the next thing I know everyone’s turning to dust and he’s in so much pain he can’t even hear what I’m saying. And – t-there was so much, so much I wanted to tell him, but – I couldn’t”, he sniffed, staring up at Doctor Strange. “I – I didn’t know how to. I don’t think he even – I don’t think he even knew I was there”.

There was a pregnant pause.

“He knew you were there”, Doctor Strange reassured him after an eternity of analytical silence. Peter scoffed, running the back of his hand against his nose and sniffing bitterly.

“You can’t know that”.

“There is a reason he didn’t speak to you”.

Peter’s eyes finally found him, squinting slightly in suspicion.

“It wasn’t because he didn’t know you were there. It was because he didn’t want to make you scared”.

Peter kept staring at him, face half-hurt, half-serious, his breath catching even harder in his throat.

“Or… Well. _More_ scared”, Strange concluded with a weary sigh. There was a small pause before he continued: “The truth is – I didn’t know Tony closely. I barely even knew him at all”, he continued, shrugging slightly. “Which is why my judgement isn’t compromised, in this case. What were his last words to you?”

Peter blinked.

“Ah – I… I…”, he hesitated.

“You know them”.

He sighed, lowering his head.

“’Hold on, kid, hug me’”, Peter admitted, not meeting the man’s eyes. “That’s the last thing he said to me”.

Strange nodded.

“And do you think he would want you to remember different last words from when he was actually dying, barely able to speak?”, he asked. Peter closed his eyes, revolted at the memory. “A pained groan, or a barely hearable call of your name, when you could keep those nice words in your memory?”

He scoffed bitterly, heart beating heavy in his chest and unshed tears making his eyes sting.

“But _I_ didn’t get to tell _him_ goodbye”, Peter shook his head, voice hoarse and shaky as he did his best not to cry. “My last words to him were ‘I’m sorry’”.

“Was the sentiment behind them false?”, Doctor Strange asked.

“ _No_ ”, Peter shook his head, growing a bit impatient. He really didn’t want to talk about this, and Doctor Strange was asking all sort of wrong questions. “But – they were nowhere close to what I wanted to say”.

“What _did_ you want to say?”

Peter closed his eyes.

He couldn’t… He couldn’t do this.

He wanted to sleep.

“Mr. – I mean, Doctor, Doctor Strange”, Peter swallowed dry, shaking his head slightly before locking his red-rimmed eyes with the man’s stoic ones. “I, hm, I really appreciate everything you did and, uh, thanks for helping me with the crazy spell thing, but – uh. Can I, can I go home now? Sir?”

Doctor Strange stared at him, looking like he was trying to read him. Looking like he thought Peter was some sort of secret just waiting to be cracked. And all Peter did was stare back, one leg bouncing, biting nervously at his lower lip.

He could just get up and leave; Strange wouldn’t be able to stop him even if he tried. But Peter had been raised better than that. The man had just saved his life, after all.

He stared at Peter for a little longer and then, as if making up his mind, suddenly stood up from his seat. Peter wasted no time in following his lead, feeling a deep sense of relief that he was finally going home and away from this nightmare conversation.

“I will contact your aunt and inform her you are heading home. I successfully cancelled the spell and you are back to your full health, though I do expect you to experience some soreness on your ribs for a couple days. You shouldn’t go through any sort of aftereffects, but do call me if that happens”, he told Peter. “Those spells can be… very tricky”.

“Sure thing, doc”, Peter nodded at him, shaking the hand Strange offered him. “Uh, thanks again for everything. If you ever need anything, any help –“, he trailed off, certain that Doctor Strange would get the spirit of his offer.

“Of course, it was my pleasure”, Strange nodded. Peter headed towards the large door of the Sanctum, already wondering how he was about to get himself home without a suit, his webshooters, money, or his phone, but, before he could even reach for the doorknob, he heard Strange add: “Before you go”, and that was enough to send him turning on his heels.

Strange looked hesitant. That was certainly a foreign look to find on the man’s usually certain face. Peter stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

Strange breathed out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. He looked to the side, as if making a decision, before locking eyes with Peter again.

“I have an offer to make you”.

Peter blinked at him. An offer? What could he possibly offer him?

“You can say no, and leave through that door, and we can both pretend this conversation never happened. Or you can say yes, and maybe I’ll be able to give you the closure you need. Either way, it’s up to you”.

Peter stared at him.

“What offer?”

“I no longer have the time stone, but I do know some useful spells”.

“Are – Are you sure?”

Strange gave him an almost offended look, as if he couldn’t understand why on earth Peter would doubt his ability.

“I should be the one asking you this. It’s your choice”.

Peter took a deep breath, looking away with an uncertain expression.

“This won’t have any effect on what actually happened. Everything you say or do will be erased as soon as I bring you back. Consider this a sort of temporary time travel – you will go back, but nothing you do will have a permanent effect on what you actually lived. This way, there is no risk of creating ramifications or multiverses, which could be catastrophic”.

“So… it’s like some sort of simulation?”, Peter asked, the hint of disappointment in his tone. In a way, this was like Mysterio all over again, but without the trauma and the evilness.

(Scratch that. Without the evilness only – the trauma would still definitely be there).

“No”, Doctor Strange told him patiently. “You will live what could have happened, but you will be the only one who will remember it. Whatever it is you say or do will be erased from that timeline the moment I bring you back. I said this was a temporary time travel, and not time travel per say, because whatever you do will only last for as long as you are there. As soon as you are gone, the interactions will be erased, but, from your perspective, they will still be real. This was a particularly powerful spell that wizards of old used to predict enemy attacks, by analyzing past behavior and strategies and predicting every single possible response from their enemies”.

Peter sighed.

“So that’s what you did to help defeat… Thanos? That’s how you knew what…?”, he trailed off sadly, and just a bit bitterly.

He knew better than to go and blame Doctor Strange for Mr. Stark’s death. All he did was for the sake of the universe, Peter knew that. For the sake of trillions of lives, all around the galaxy. The man just did what he had to do.

(Knowing that didn’t make it easier, though).

“More or less”, Doctor Strange explained. “This particular spell only works with the past – I can only send you back to moments that have already happened, and have you experience them in a different way that isn’t permanent. With Thanos… The time stone broadened my horizons”, Strange raised an almost daring eyebrow at him.

Peter averted his eyes, hesitant.

“I don’t know, doc. I feel like…”, he sighed, trailing off.

“Like what?”, Doctor Strange encouraged, stern as ever.

“Like it will just make me miss him more”.

There was a pause. Peter didn’t meet Doctor Strange’s eyes.

Then, Strange placed a hand on his shoulder. It was oddly comforting. Peter looked at him.

“It will”, he nodded solemnly, no sugarcoating. “But it will also give you the closure you need to finally let your wounds heal”.

Peter stared straight ahead and took a deep, shaky breath.

Doctor Strange let go of his shoulder, taking a mindful set of steps back.

“Like I said, it’s your choice. I’m simply the mediator in this case”.

Peter looked at him, confused with the amount of emotions he was feeling on that moment.

“Why are you doing this?”

Strange raised an eyebrow at him.

“Does there have to be a reason?”

Peter chuckled, and it came off a bit bitter. But he couldn’t really remember laughing a laugh that _didn’t_ sound bitter ever since what happened… happened.

“No, it’s just – I mean. You were probably going on about your life minding your business and I just knocked you off your routine by showing up with my brains boiling at your doorstep. You don’t really have to do this”.

Strange nodded without hesitation.

“You’re right. I don’t”, he said.

Peter shook his head, still confused, eyes glued on the man before him.

“Then _why?”_ , he asked, desperate to understand.

“Peter”, Strange told him patiently. “Before being the Master of the Mystical Arts, before becoming some sort of superhero, or whatever it is you want to call me – I’m a _doctor_. And if there is one thing years of an expensive, highly acclaimed medical school taught me, is that wounds don’t heal if you keep tearing them open”.

Peter looked at him through teary eyes.

“Unless you find some closure, you won’t be able to move on. And, even though Earth has gotten to know more intergalactic threats recently, even though you have been to space yourself – Queens still needs its friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to look after the little guy”.

Peter’s heart did something weird inside his chest. It was painful.

“Surely, you can find closure in other ways”, Strange commented, shrugging. “I’m just offering a way that no one else can”.

_Because I know a pretty good therapist I can send you to if you need –_

“And, if I have to be honest”, Doctor Strange concluded, his tone shifting slightly away from its usual sternness, “I feel like it’s the least I can do”.

Peter bit his lower lip, lowering his head.

“Fine. Ok”.

It was raining as he climbed up the wall of the building, finding the window to Mr. Stark’s workshop, opening it, and sneaking inside. The man was so focused on his work that he didn’t even notice his presence, and Friday knew better than to tell on him. Peter and she had an agreement that she wouldn’t snitch on him when he snuck in, in case he wanted to play a prank on Mr. Stark – which started to happen more often, as they grew closer to each other.

He wasn’t there to play a prank this time, but he was thankful that Friday didn’t warn Tony. Even from the distance, gazing upon his mentor’s form hunched over his working desk, Peter could see the dark bags under his eyes and the tense posture of his shoulders.

He hadn’t slept ever since their fight, then. Peter could relate to that.

And it also broke his heart all over again. Knowing that this was officially the last time he was ever seeing Tony, knowing that this was officially the last time he would ever be able to touch him and talk to him.

Knowing that, no matter what he said, Tony would never remember it, because all of this was nothing more than a kind of hyper-realistic half-time-travel meant to help _him_ cope, and not the other way around.

Jeez. What was he even _doing_ there? This was messed up. This was selfish, and there was no way this would end –

“Peter?”, Mr. Stark called, and Jesus, his _voice_ , the way he said his name, every single thing about it felt like being suddenly punched in the stomach by the Hulk. It hurt so much Peter’s eyes immediately pooled with tears as a reflex, and he hated himself for that reaction. His heart had decided to go on a full marathon inside his chest, jumping and starting to hammer like crazy at the call of his name, because this was _Tony Stark_ , and he was alive, and even though it had only been a few months ever since Peter last saw him, it still felt like a whole eternity. It still felt weirdly gratifying, and nostalgic, and painful, and joyful, and terrible, all at the same time.

Mr. Stark stood up from where he had been working and approached him at the lack of a response, worry overwhelming the tiredness in his eyes. God, out of a sudden Peter couldn’t even remember how he had actually settled that fight with Mr. Stark in the past, but the look of guilt that flashed across Tony’s eyes as he noticed Peter’s dripping form in the middle of his workshop told him that it had probably _not_ been enough. What he _did_ know was that this fight and everything that happened afterwards was one of his biggest regrets, because it caused him to waste precious time that could have been spent developing his relationship with Tony, had he been the wiser.

(had he known he would lose him too _–)_

“ _Jesus_ , kid, were you out in that storm without your suit? Are spiders immune to lightning now and someone forgot to tell me?”, Tony scolded him, disbelief mixing with the evident worry on his face.

And Peter couldn’t take his eyes off him, he couldn’t look away, because Tony looked so much younger than when he last saw him, in the middle of the battlefield, and he looked so … So _alive_. This had happened before Thanos, before the alien invasion in 2018, so there wasn’t any grey in his hair. There wasn’t grief in his eyes yet.

Seeing him like that, when Peter’s last memory of him was after the snap, was verging on _unbearable_. His chest felt like it was on fire, his heart felt like it was trying to burst out of his ribcage. His lungs were too tiny to suck in proper breaths, and, before he knew better, he gasped, the sound coming off as shaky and wet.

Oh, shit, he was about to break down. He was about to break down and he hadn’t even gotten a word out yet. And Tony – Tony didn’t even have a _clue_ what was happening. Why Peter was so shaken up.

Why he looked as if he was seeing a ghost.

“Ok, Peter?”, Tony frowned at him, taking another step closer. Peter actually flinched at his voice, at the way it sounded concerned, lowering his head and focusing on _not crying not crying not crying_. He ended up gasping again, the sound resembling a whimper, and that only served to make Tony even more nervous. He reached for Peter, but his hands never quite touched him. “You gotta talk to me, kid. You’re kind of freaking me out right now, just standing there all damp with that look on your face. What happened?”

He finally broke the distance between them and placed a supportive hand beneath one of Peter’s elbows, and then, only then, did Peter realize his knees were shaking so hard he must have looked like he was about to keel over. Now that he thought better about it, he probably _was_ about to keel over.

This was all ridiculously too much. He tried to recompose himself, to just _stop shaking like a leaf,_ because he was Spider-Man, he should be stronger than this, he should be _happy_ he was getting to see Tony one last time, but – but he… He wasn’t ready.

He had thought he was ready. He had thought he was ready to do this, to see his mentor again, but he wasn’t, he clearly wasn’t, and having Mr. Stark look at him like this, talking to him after… After…

Too much. This was too much.

Tony was dead. He was gone. Peter needed to remember that, he couldn’t let himself get lost in that experience. He needed to keep himself grounded. He needed to remind his heart of that, because otherwise, he felt like he might actually go crazy.

But, at the same time, Tony was alive. Breathing, and standing right beside him. This was happening. Right on that moment, it was happening. Peter had traveled to the past, this was real. Mr. Stark would never remember it, nothing Peter did would make a single difference because it would be erased as soon as Dr. Strange brought him back, but this was happening. Then and now. In that moment. If it would be erased later, it didn’t matter. Not right now.

What a crappy spell. Peter wished it didn’t exist, at the same time he was grateful for it.

He instinctively reached out and grabbed Tony’s arm just at the same time his knees finally gave up on supporting his weight.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Jesus, kid”, Tony exclaimed in surprise, shifting his weight as he was forced to support Peter’s, who clung to him and tried his best to regain his footing with no success.

Tony held Peter close to his chest, supporting him, and everything about this only served to remind him of Titan, of having every atom in his body teared apart, of clinging to Mr. Stark and begging for his life, of the fear and panic of dying, and this was too much, he couldn’t take it anymore, he couldn’t hold back a sob, and this was so ridiculous and pathetic and humiliating he sort of wished Doctor Strange would pull him back to the present and let him start over because this was _not_ going the way he had planned.

“M-Mr. Stark?”, he asked, voice breaking, and before he knew better his lower lip was quivering and the tears that he was fighting so hard against were rolling down his cheeks. He awkwardly tried keep them from flowing out by screwing his eyes shut, but there was no way Tony hadn’t noticed them already.

“Pete. Hey, hey, Pete”, Tony called as Peter clung heavily to him, almost afraid, and that was a tone Peter didn’t like hearing in the man’s voice. That was a tone he had only heard once –

_(You’re all right)_

_–_ and that he had wished never to hear again. Because it gave off so much fatherly concern that it made Peter’s chest feel funny; it reminded him of those times when he used to get sick all the time as a kid and Uncle Ben would sit by his bedside all night long, trying to urge a response out of him.

Clearly unable to keep Peter upright for much longer, Tony struggled to hold him with one arm as he used his free hand to grab him a chair and force him to sit down on it. Once Peter was slumped on his seat, Tony rushed off without a word, away from Peter’s view. Before the boy could ever turn his head to see where his mentor was going, Tony returned with a Stark Industries hoodie, sweatpants, and an old towel.

“I’m gonna get you out of those wet clothes. I don’t care what spider-privileges you think you have, I’m not letting you catch a cold on my watch”, Tony said, his voice leaving no room for a discussion.

“I c-can d-do it”, Peter said, shifting on his seat so he could get back up.

“Peter”, Tony cut him off, stern. His tone was tight and tense. “You look like you’re going to fall on your face if you stand up”.

“Mr. Stark –“

“No. Zip it”, Tony cut him off sharply, and Peter picked up some anger in that mix of emotions in Tony’s voice. He looked up at the man, noticing the subtle trembling of his hands as he clutched the hoodie and glared down at Peter with a frown.

Ok, maybe letting Mr. Stark look after him one last time wouldn’t be so terrible.

Peter allowed himself to relax and slump back against the back rest of his chair, which Tony read as a sign of surrender.

“All right. Arms up, Spider-Baby”, he ordered, and Peter removed his wet, clingy shirt instead of allowing Tony to do that for him. He held on to the cloth awkwardly, not knowing whether he should hand it over to Mr. Stark or just drop it into a heap on the floor. Then, his brain started to wonder if his shirt would actually be left behind once he returned to the present, which reminded him that this interaction would eventually be over, because Mr. Stark was dead, and his eyes pooled with tears again.

Tony sighed at the sight and yanked the wet shirt from Peter’s hands, dropping it to the floor without a second thought. Peter couldn’t meet his mentor’s eyes as the man dried him up the best he could with the raggedy towel, taking a special care to ruffle his hair with it in a way that was almost aggressive, before all but shoving the hoodie on Peter and giving the boy a moment to adjust his arms into the proper sleeve holes.

“C’mon, pants off. And don’t try to act all shy about it, we both know this isn’t your first trip on the injury carrousel”, he said, even though his head was turned to the side and looking away from him, as if to preserve some of Peter’s privacy.

“’M not injured”, Peter managed to choke out, hating the way his voice sounded hoarse and shaky from tears. There was no way Tony didn’t notice it, and Peter could see the way his shoulders sagged, as if he was carrying the weight of the world in them.

Guilt overwhelmed him like a storm.

“Mr. Stark, really, I can do it –“

“Peter, for _god’s_ sake, just –“, Tony interrupted him, stressed out. He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and closed his eyes, exasperated.

Peter stared up at him. Tony took a deep breath and handed him the towel with an impatient sigh, not looking at him.

“Dry yourself up”.

And then he took the seat directly in front of Peter, crossing his arms above his chest, crossing his legs and bouncing one of them with impatience, and looking anywhere but at him.

Peter did as he had been told, removing his wet pants, standing up on his shaky legs, drying them off, and stepping into the comfy, dry sweatpants Tony had given him. He discarded the damp pants on the top of his shirt, collapsing on his chair again and suddenly feeling bone-deep tired.

He stared at Tony. It took Tony a while to stare back.

“Ok, kid; spit it”, he said, voice tight and face stern. But Peter could see it in his eyes that he was probably going through a lot of emotions on that moment. “What the _hell_ happened to you?”, he asked, and the worry in his voice was so evident it only made everything worse.

The last thing Peter wanted was to make Mr. Stark feel bad or upset. Peter was there to make himself come to terms with Tony’s loss, to learn how to deal with his _own_ feelings, yes, but that didn’t mean he wanted to mess Tony’s up. He sniffed, gasped, and tried his best to wipe his tears away as they fell, keeping in mind that he had to keep his cool, he couldn’t lose control, if not for the sake of his ultimate farewell, then for Mr. Stark’s.

“E-Everything’s fine, I just –“, he sniffed again. Tony kept staring at him.

“You just _what_?”, he urged, anxious when Peter didn’t continue, desperate to understand what the hell had gotten into the kid for him to show up to his workshop in that state.

And what could Peter possibly say? _I watched you die and I wanted to say goodbye properly? I really missed you and I wanted to see you again? I feel like I failed you as a superhero and as a surrogate son, and the guilt of not being able to save you still keeps me up at night even though it has been months? Even though it came down to your life or the whole universe’s?_

_I love you and you’re like a father to me?_

“I – I felt bad. About – About our – uh, fight”, Peter settled for saying, because it wasn’t a lie. This was one of the many reasons why he had chosen this specific moment to come back to. This – this had been his first _real_ fight with Tony after the ferry incident. And even though they had settled it in whatever forgettable way they did in the past and gotten back to their usual antics, Peter still thought about it, sometimes. He still regretted it.

Honestly, it had just felt like the best moment to have his final conversation with Tony. Because if he had showed up at any other point of their relationship, being overly emotional would be too weird, which meant Tony would be bound to realize something was wrong and ask too many questions. Showing up to this moment after their fight, though, where they were both emotional and pissed and desperate to just go back to talking to each other, was just perfect. And convenient.

Tony squinted his eyes in suspicion.

“So you decided to take a stroll out in the rain like some sort of Victorian protagonist and climb the exterior of a skyscraper instead of, I don’t know, _taking the elevator_?”

Peter sighed shakily, trying to calm himself down enough so that he could calm _Mr. Stark_ down.

“Mr. Stark –“

“Jeez, Peter, this was _exactly_ what I was talking about that day”, Tony interrupted him with an angry scoff, standing up from his seat abruptly and pacing in front of it. His mood was clearly shifting from extremely worried to mildly exasperated now that he had learned Peter’s ‘motive’, and now that he knew the boy wasn’t actually injured or hurt in any physical way. “You know, for such a smart kid, you really make me wonder, sometimes”, he added bitterly.

Peter breathed out.

“I just –“

“Did you even _consider_ the fact that you could have slipped, fallen down, and broken your neck? Because it’s _pouring_ outside? And you’re not even wearing your suit, _or_ your webshooters? Trust me, kid, as much as I love seeing May’s pretty face, I don’t want to be the one to break her the news that her nephew –“

“Mr. Stark, _please_ ”, Peter interrupted with urgency, his voice a half-whisper, half-sob. The sound of it – broken, pleading, and small – seemed to call Tony’s attention enough to make him stop talking and frown at Peter again.

Peter looked at him, eyes red rimmed, puffy, and damp. His hands were shaking, and his lower lip was still trembling. Breathing was hard, but he pushed through it.

“Listen – I’m sorry”, he started, voice still breaking at the edges, even though his words sounded firmer than before. He knew exactly what he was apologizing about, and despite what Tony thought at that moment, it wasn’t about the fight.

He knew Mr. Stark would have no actual memory of this conversation, but it still didn’t feel right to just spill the beans about the future. If anything, Peter didn’t _want_ to. He didn’t feel like he could just _talk_ about what had happened yet.

Because that was why he was there, right? To find a way to cope with what happened? To find a way to finally heal from the pain of losing someone so dear to him? To find some peace at last?

If he brought up Thanos and Mr. Stark’s death… He’d never get that closure. If he brought up the five years, and Morgan, and the sacrifice Tony made… There would be a lot to unfold. A lot to remember. A lot to unbury. A lot to explain. And this was selfish as hell, Peter knew, but all he wanted – all he wanted was to talk to Mr. Stark. One last time. To have some peaceful final moments with him, like the old days used to be. To have a nice final memory of the man who was like a father to him. To be close to him, and talk to him, and… And find a way to close his wounds. To come to terms with what had happened.

Also, straight up saying ‘ _Hey, I’m from a future where you died tragically and left behind a wife and child in order to save the entire universe from ultimate destruction_ ’ didn’t feel quite right in that context.

He couldn’t help but to think that losing Mr. Stark was a result of his messed-up father-karma. He couldn’t help but to feel like maybe, if he hadn’t loved Mr. Stark, and if Mr. Stark hadn’t loved him, none of this would have happened. He couldn’t help but to think that this was somehow his fault. He should have tried harder, he should have fought harder, he should have never let himself get so close to Mr. Stark, because every single mentor he had ever had, every single father figure, had died tragically and left him behind. He was clearly cursed in that area.

And it was driving him crazy.

“Uh – ok?”, Tony squinted his eyes at Peter when the boy didn’t continue, sounding a bit impatient and just as worried as before. Peter realized he had been silent for too long.

“I didn’t mean to make you worried, or – or to go against your orders”, he continued, voice still broken, because yes, this was true, he hadn’t meant to do _any_ of those things when he went along with Tony in that fight all those years back, but he also hadn’t meant to do it when he snuck into the donut ship headed to Titan despite Tony’s order for him to go back home.

_If anything, it’s kind of your fault I’m here –_

God, the fight seemed so stupid, now. So meaningless. At that time, this had been one of the biggest issues in Peter’s life, and now…

Now he’d been to space, he had spent five years dead, and he had watched Tony die after saving the universe. Nothing could ever compare to that. Nothing could ever make that ok, either, he realized.

But, at the same time, in some weird, probably messed up way… It felt kind of comforting, going back to arguing over something so trivial and meaningless. Nostalgic, even. Better argue about that than never talk to Mr. Stark again.

“I – I didn’t mean to disrespect you”.

Tony sighed and, before he could say anything, Peter continued:

“But – there’s a lot I can do, sir. And I know there’s a lot I _can’t_ do just yet, either, but I’ll never learn unless I try”, he sniffed, desperate for Tony to understand. “There’s a lot of people I can’t trust, there’s a lot of things I’m not ready for. But – having to watch you die, when I know there’s something I can do to stop it, it’s just – it’s just _unbearable_ to me. I don’t think I’d be able to live with that guilt. And it’s not because – b-because of Uncle Ben, or whatever it is you’re thinking. It’s because – it’s – it’s _you_ ”.

Tony stared at him, an unreadable look in his eyes.

“Ok, kid, what’s gotten into you?”

Peter’s stomach dropped.

“W-What?”

“You’re acting weird”.

“I’m not acting weird, Tony, I’m just trying to –“

“ _What_?”

“W-What?”

“Did you just call me _Tony_?”

Oh shit. This was getting out of hand faster than he had expected. _Dear Doctor Strange, if you can hear this, please beam me the heck up –_

“I – Uh – I’m – I’m s-sorry, Mr. S-Stark, I – uh, it – it slipped –“

“Wow”, Tony shook his head with an impressed look on his face. “If I knew all it would take for you to start calling me by my first name was a stupid fight, I’d have gotten into it a long time ago”, he scoffed in amusement.

Peter stared up at him in surprise.

“So… It’s… Ok?”

His mentor eyerolled.

“Of course it’s _ok_ , Underoos, for god’s sake. But don’t think I’m not still mad at you for what you pulled in that fight”.

The boy sighed again.

“Mr. Stark –“

“Nope, my turn”, Tony pointed a finger at him and raised his eyebrows. He sat back down in front of Peter, but he was on the edge of his seat, clearly worked up. “If you think watching me die would be bad, kid, just imagine what _me_ watching _you_ die would be like”.

Peter blinked at him, frowning. He didn’t like the turn this was taking. Could they start talking about something that didn’t involve death?

“Can’t imagine it?”, Tony raised his eyebrows upon Peter’s silence. “Yeah. It’s because it’s unimaginable”, he shrugged, unaware of how uncomfortable Peter was starting to feel.

“Uh –“

“Still my turn, Parker”, Tony cut him off before he could say anything. “Since you’re the one who started this overly emotional heart-to-heart, you’ll have to listen, too. As I was saying”, he raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms above his chest. “You’re the kid. I’m the grown-up. It’s only natural I die before you do, so that’s an idea you should start getting used to”.

Peter’s heart sank.

“Listen, so, uh, can we –“

“Nah ah ah. Still me”, Tony gestured at himself. “And trust me, when I walked into that small apartment in Queens to recruit some dumpster-diver kid who liked to dress up in an ugly onesie, I didn’t think I’d get emotionally attached, either”, he admitted. “But here I am. And if something happened to you, Pete – god, this is ridiculous, but I mean it when I say I simply _don’t know what I’d_ _do_ ”.

Peter stared at Tony. He was sure his face was doing something ugly because of the effort it took him to keep himself from downright sobbing.

“You’re a good kid. And, as cheesy as it may sound, I care about you. Hell, kid, I’d probably force myself to figure out, I don’t know, _time travel,_ if it meant I could keep you alive and safe”.

Peter couldn’t help it. He choked back a sob, the tears escaping his eyes again, and covered his mouth with a shaking hand in shame.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s why I don’t do heart-to-hearts”, Tony rolled his chair closer to Peter’s and patted the boy’s back comfortingly as his shoulders racked with silent sobs. “They tend to get messy”.

“M-Mr. Stark”, he fought against his tears, frantically wiping them away at the same time they fell. As he looked into his mentor’s eyes, he tried to put all the pain, all the loss, all the misery he had been through in those past months into his next words: “I’m sorry”.

Tony chuckled at him and gave him a lopsided smirk, even though his eyes looked emotional.

“Yeah, I know, kid. I can see that”, he teased Peter, raising an impressed eyebrow at him. In no time, however, Tony’s façade fell, and he sighed heavily as he lowered his head and admitted: “I’m sorry, too”.

He squeezed Peter’s shoulder and met his eyes. Upon the boy’s confused look, he added:

“I was an asshole to you yesterday. I shouldn’t have said that stuff about –“, he trailed off, waving a dismissive hand.

“It’s ok, Mr. Stark”, Peter reassured him, because the last thing he wanted was for Mr. Stark to feel guilty or upset for something Peter could barely remember during his little coping-mechanism session.

“No”, Tony immediately shook his head, shrugging. “Not really, Pete. It was a jerk move, and I know it upset you. I’m just –“, he sighed heavily, going back to crossing his arms and leaning a bit away from Peter on his chair. “I let my anger and my worry take the best of me and said things I didn’t mean. I’m not really good at this sort of stuff, kid. This emotional mumbo jumbo? Not my area. At _all_. You know that”.

“Yeah, I know that”, Peter nodded at him reassuringly, no accusation in his tone. “And I’m sorry”.

“Don’t – _apologize_ ”, Tony closed his eyes with impatience, as if this conversation wasn’t going anything like had planned. Peter could relate to the feeling. Tony sighed and ran a tired hand across his face before continuing: “I mean, not about _that_. Feel free to apologize as much as you want for nearly giving this old man a heart attack two days in a row for being reckless, but – You shouldn’t feel sorry for wanting to come clear with me, kid, that’s –“, he sighed again, sounding clueless. “You’re allowed that. You _should_ , and you can, be honest with me. About anything you want”.

Tony leaned back on his seat and took a deep breath, shaking his head slightly.

“I’m trying to be better. You know, I always told myself I would never have kids, because I didn’t want to turn out like my old man. But when you looked at me with that face yesterday, after I yelled at you, and after you left like that – after I told you what I did, I –“, he gazed away, sighing.

There was silence for a few moments.

“I felt I was just like Howard”.

Peter stared at him.

“Mr. Stark”, he told him seriously. “You’re not making any sense”.

Tony stared at him, disbelief and some level of indignation written all over his face.

“You’re not like your dad”, Peter reassured him, trying to sound as sincere as possible. “And I know you didn’t mean it”.

Tony kept staring at him, as if he wasn’t buying anything Peter was saying.

“You were upset”, Tony said matter-of-factly, as if he believed Peter had all the right in the world to hate him for saying one mean thing, once.

“Yeah”, Peter admitted. “Because I wanted to be right. I wanted you to see I was more than just a kid from Queens who doesn’t know any better. I – I just wanted to prove myself to you”.

_All right, kid. You’re an Avenger now._

“And yeah, what you said hurt me a bit, but that doesn’t mean you’re _anything_ like your dad. We had a fight, that happens sometimes. I have arguments with May all the time, and that doesn’t mean she’s a bad aunt. It – It just means we’re a family”, he shrugged, feeling weirdly vulnerable. From the way Tony was looking at him, Peter could tell he was also… Emotional. Before the man could say anything, he added: “Also, I said some pretty hurtful stuff, too, so we’re even”.

Tony scoffed in disagreement, rolling his eyes. Before a sarcastic retort could come, Peter took a deep breath and added:

“I know why you care I got hurt, Mr. Stark. I shouldn’t have said that to you. And that’s also the same reason why I stepped into that fight, even though you told me not to”.

Tony’s smirk died on his lips and he looked at Peter with cautious eyes.

“I couldn’t just… I couldn’t let you be killed”.

Tony scoffed again, but this time, there was no humor in the gesture.

“I can tell you the same, kid”, he pointed out stubbornly.

“I know”, Peter nodded. “And we… We definitely should have handled this better, Mr. Stark”, he chuckled. Tony still looked unhappy with that situation, but he gave Peter a brief smirk in response. “But having that fight, and arguing, and saying that hurtful stuff to each other, it… It doesn’t mean you’re not a good father”.

There was a beat before Peter realized what he had just said.

Oh.

Well, shit.

Tony’s face was a mess of wide-eyed, surprised emotion as he tried to formulate a response, at the same time Peter’s eyes nearly popped off their sockets due to the sheer shock and embarrassment he was feeling for saying that.

He had done it. He had basically just called Mr. Stark his father, to his face, _on accident,_ and he would be damned if he didn’t truly wish for Doctor Strange to just open up one of those portals beneath him on the floor and swallow him into the void.

“Jesus, Pete, you’ve got something you want to tell me?”, Tony chuckled nervously, fake-exasperated, resorting to humor as a way to hide his nervousness, as it was his _modus operandi_. “You don’t have a damp DNA test hidden somewhere beneath all those wet clothes, do you?”, he raised an eyebrow. Peter couldn’t help but to chuckle nervously, and gave Tony a sincere, albeit embarrassed look.

“N-No, Mr. Stark, that wasn’t – that wasn’t what I meant”, he said, feeling the heat rising to his cheeks in the form of a blush.

Tony chuckled at Peter’s embarrassed reaction, but, sensing the seriousness behind the boy’s previous words, he gave him an almost fond-looking half-smile.

“I know, squirt”, he said, crossing his arms above his chest again. “And I’m honored you see me that way”, he teased, raising an eyebrow.

“Stop it!”, Peter said, chuckling and fake-annoyed, knowing that he was doomed to be forever teased by Mr. Stark for making a comment like that.

And then it dawned on him again. He’d only be teased for as long as their little, final ‘forever’ lasted. Because Tony was gone.

He must have noticed the way Peter’s expression shifted into something grimmer, because in no time he was leaning forwards on his chair, a worried frown on his face.

“Pete?”, he asked, concerned. Peter took in a shaky, miserable breath, blinking his tears away before meeting Tony’s eyes again, lest the man notice them.

His chest was aching with a newfound pain. He missed Tony. He missed him so much it physically hurt. And, for a moment, he had almost forgotten that he had lost him forever.

“I’m ok”, he lied, swallowing dry and forcing a smile into his lips. Tony’s face didn’t change, and he didn’t buy Peter’s lie.

“I meant it, kiddo. You can – and you should – always be honest with me. Whatever it is”, he encouraged, looking serious.

Peter bit his lower lip. He couldn’t – He couldn’t be fully honest with Tony, not when it meant telling him things Peter didn’t want him to know. But he didn’t want to lie to him either.

“I just…”, he said, voice small and shaky with emotion. He looked up at Tony, eyes damp and red. “I’m not ready to lose you, sir”.

Tony snorted a tiny laugh, smirking at Peter. Peter couldn’t bring himself to smile back. Tony leaned forward and tapped the boy’s shoulder a couple times before squeezing it and rubbing it comfortingly, in an almost paternal way.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Underoos”, he said, standing up from his seat and rolling his chair back into place. “Also, I don’t plan on going anywhere so soon”.

Peter lowered his head, biting at his inner cheek to prevent from sobbing and to prevent Tony from seeing his reaction.

“Are you coming along, or would you rather just sit there staring at the floor for the rest of the night?”, Tony raised an eyebrow at him, turning the screen of his computer off and giving Peter an inquiring look. Peter raised his head, frowning at his mentor.

“W-What?”

“You. Me. Pizza, ice cream, old sci-fi movies at the common room. Are you in or are you out?”

Peter’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.

“Quick thinking, Spider-Lad. Before you make up your mind, I’ll remind you that there’s a storm pouring outside, so ‘out’ is not an actual option”.

“Mr. Stark –“

“Yeah, I knew that’d be your choice. C’mon”, he resumed turning everything he had been doing before Peter’s arrival off before downright walking out of the workshop without sparing Peter another look. Peter had no choice but to stand up and follow him, realizing his knees were thankfully not as shaky as they had been minutes before.

“B-But Mr. Stark, what about – what about my clothes –?”, he pointed at the damp heap of clothes on the floor of the workshop, at the same time as Tony used an arm to hold the elevator door open for them.

“DUM-E can take care of that, don’t worry about it”, Tony told him, making a gesture for Peter to hurry to the elevator – even though that was a _personal_ elevator and it wasn’t even remotely possible that anyone else was waiting to use it on another floor.

Peter spared the clothes a final look before rushing out of the workshop and into the elevator. Tony stepped in right after him and pressed the button that led to the common room of the tower.

The elevator descended slowly, and the silence between them as they stood side by side was verging on awkward. Peter felt the need to fill it, even though he wasn’t sure how.

“Uh… If… If it makes you feel better, I’m – not angry at you. Anymore”, he settled for saying, feeling more awkward than anything.

“Of course you’re not. You climbed all the way up here in the rain and called me dad”, Tony scoffed, sparing Peter a mischievous smirk that was accompanied by a wink. Peter groaned and let his head fall back, rolling his eyes, at the same time the elevator door opened and they stepped into the common room.

“I didn’t call you _dad_ ”, he argued half-heartedly as he headed to the couch and Tony, to the open kitchen.

“Whatever you say”, Tony replied from the kitchen, which wasn’t too far away. And, after a few seconds, just as Peter thought he was finally dropping the subject, he added: “… son”.

Peter groaned again, extra loudly this time as if to make a point, much to Tony’s amusement. The man grabbed a pair of frozen pizzas from the freezer and put them in a tray, which he placed in the oven. Once everything was done, Tony stepped into the common room, arms crossed above his chest and staring down at Peter’s slumped form on the couch. He pointed the boy with his usual I’m-Tony-Stark-And-I’m-Right look.

“I’m not angry at you, either. Not anymore, at least”, he reassured.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark”.

“Doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods, yet, Spider-Baby”, Tony squinted. He sat beside Peter on the couch, offering him a serious look. “You can’t just act that recklessly in a fight, no matter who’s in danger”.

Peter sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. He had thought they were past that discussion.

“Mr. Stark –“

“Peter”, Tony interrupted him, his voice as serious as Peter had ever heard it. Peter looked at him with sharp attention. “I’m going to say something, you’re going to hear it, and this discussion will be over. Ok?”

Peter blinked before nodding hesitantly.

“O-Ok”.

Tony took a deep breath, as if he was bracing himself, before looking back up at Peter.

“One of the things I hate the most is seeing you hurt”, Tony admitted, and from the way his shoulders were tense and his face was unreadable, Peter could imagine how difficult it was for him to say those words aloud, to Peter’s face. “I feel responsible for you. Not just because I recruited you and brought you into stuff you’d probably take a lot longer to get in contact with. But because I care about you, as I’ve told you at least twice already and you still can’t seem to get into that thick webhead of yours”.

“Third time’s a charm, Mr. Stark”, Peter shrugged, trying to diffuse the tension and make Mr. Stark feel more comfortable. Tony squinted at him.

“ _So_ ”, he continued, “when I saw you got hurt, I freaked out. And don’t get me wrong, Pete. You’re strong. You could probably break the Hulk’s neck with a flick of your pinky finger. I know you can take a lot, and I know you’re tougher than you look. But – hell, kid. In these past years, you became important to me. Is it really that bad that I don’t want to see you get hurt?”

“I understand, Mr. Stark”, Peter nodded. “But I don’t want to see you get hurt, either! Can you please try to understand how hard it was – how – how hard it would _be”_ , he corrected himself, “for me to – to –”

He trailed off. Tony took a deep, calming breath as if to avoid losing his temper, before he rubbed his temple and his shoulders sagged in a half-defeated way.

“Can we just agree not to recklessly jump into danger and get ourselves injured for each other on the field anymore? Or at least _try_ not to?”, he asked, sounding tired of having the same argument all over again. Peter lowered his head and nodded slowly.

It was useless fighting over this or insisting on this subject. Tony had already died for him.

He looked up upon his mentor’s silence, only to find that Tony had stood up and was in front of him, offering Peter his pinky finger. Peter frowned.

“What’s that judge-y look for? You’re the one who always settles things with pinky promises”, Tony teased, raising his eyebrows.

Peter smiled a bittersweet smile.

“Pinky promises are unbreakable, Mr. Stark”, he said, hating how melancholic his voice ended up sounding. “If we do this, it means you can’t risk yourself for me, either. _Or_ get yourself killed for me”.

He stared deep into Tony’s eyes. Tony stared back at him.

“Or else…?”, Tony asked, almost mocking.

“I don’t know”, Peter shrugged, miserable. “But it’s just unbreakable”.

Tony studied his face for a while.

Then he retrieved his pinky finger, turned on his heels and went to check on their pizza.

“How are your ribs, by the way?”, he asked Peter in between bites of the scorched pizza.

“Better”, Peter said with his mouth full, even if he could barely remember the years-old injury.

“Sounds like BS, but since you actually look better, I’m not questioning it”, Tony shrugged.

“Thanks”.

“For stating the obvious? Yeah, you’re welcome, kiddo”, he rolled his eyes. “You gonna tell me what’s bothering you now or do you want to grab another slice first?”

“Huh?”, Peter asked, nervous. Tony rolled his eyes.

“You’re obviously upset. About something that’s not just our fight”.

Peter hesitated.

“I’ll be fine”.

Tony sighed.

“Stop”.

“Stop what?”

“You know, I vaguely remember that, back when you screwed the pooch at that ferry incident, I clearly told you that I wanted you to be _better_ than me, not _like_ me”.

Peter frowned.

“I’m not following, Mr. Stark”.

“Internalizing feelings and acting like you’re fine and don’t need emotional support is _my_ thing, Underoos. You have to be better than that. Plus, you’ve been acting weird ever since we got up here, which doesn’t add up since I thought we had settled the discussion. What, is my pizza terrible or something?”

Peter immediately shook his head, swallowing down the last of his pizza before he spoke.

“No, Mr. Stark, everything’s great, I promise”, he tried, nervous. Tony set his plate away and turned so that he could face Peter.

“Listen, kid. If you _really_ don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’m not going to force you, god knows I always hated it when people did that to me”, he said, face full of Tony-typical honesty. “But if you _do_ want to talk about it, if you’re not doing it because you feel like I will judge you or won’t listen, then – just spill your guts. You can talk to me, ok?”

And god, Peter hurt. His heart hurt. He wished he had known this before, he wished he had this talk with Tony before. He wished he hadn’t spent every single interaction with him overthinking, he wished he could go back and actually change things for real, he wished there was a way he could bring Tony back to life and stop the hurt, stop the pain, stop that horrible, terrible feeling gnawing at his guts and making him feel sore and tired.

This experience was unbearable, and definitely a bad idea. He wished Doctor Strange had never suggested it in the first place. Because now, Peter knew, more sharply than ever, what he had lost. Now, he knew what he was missing on. Now, he knew what he could have had, but never would.

He couldn’t help himself. He started crying again.

Tony removed the empty pizza plate from Peter’s hands and immediately pulled him into a hug, squeezing him tight and holding him to his chest. Peter allowed himself to be held, his fingers clinging to Tony’s back and burying his face into his mentor’s chest as he sobbed brokenly. He wasn’t even in the proper state of mind to realize that, chronologically speaking, this was the first time Tony ever allowed himself to hug him.

_Hold on, kid, hug me –_

Tony didn’t say anything as he held the sobbing boy in his arms and Peter was thankful for it. It was as if his mentor had sensed that, no matter what he said, nothing would be able to fix Peter’s pain for the time being.

“You want to talk about it?”

Peter sniffed, not meeting Tony’s eyes.

“Not really”.

“All right. You wanna watch that movie?”

“Yeah”.

“You don’t sound that into it, kid. If you’re tired, you can go up to –“

“No, no, no, it’s ok. I want to watch the movie with you”.

“Ok, then”.

“Which one are we watching?”

Tony frowned.

“The one we always watch?”

“Oh”.

“Why? Got tired of Star Wars already?”

Peter chuckled fondly.

“No, I was just wondering”.

“About?”

“Uh, maybe we could watch something else. Something _you_ like, for a change”.

Tony squinted his eyes at him.

“You don’t want to do that, kid”.

“Why not?”

“My taste in movies is terrible”.

“I doubt that”.

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s actually amazing. But you’re not going to like the kind of movies I usually watch”.

“Are you saying _my_ taste in movies is bad?”

“Well, I mean… Your favorite movie _is_ Star Wars”.

“Star Wars is a classic!”

“No, it’s not, and you’re a baby for thinking that”.

“No, I’m not”.

“If you were born this century, then you’re forever a baby. Sorry, I don’t make the rules”.

“Can a baby do this?”, Peter stood up and lifted the couch above his head using only one hand, while Tony was still sitting on it. Tony gave him an unimpressed look from where he was sitting tall above Peter’s head.

“If you ruin my couch, you’ll have to buy me another”.

“You’re a billionaire!”

“I’ll take it from your internship salary”

“That’s hardly fair, Mr. Stark”, Peter said, putting the couch down.

“All right. Then I’ll tell May you have no manners and that you ruined my very expensive, billionaire couch”.

“Ok, now that’s a threat I can feel worried about”.

“See? Get those pizza-grubby hands off my cushions, muscular baby, or I’ll call May”.

“Your hands are grubbier than mine!”

“I’m allowed to, since I own the couch”.

“Billionaire privileges”.

“You have spider privileges, you’re hardly one to talk”.

“I wish spider privileges made me rich, though”.

“You’re asking for a raise, Parker?”

“I don’t know, is that an option?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Pepper is the one who runs the money, so you’ll have to win her favors first”.

“Mrs. Potts already loves me and you know it”.

Tony frowned.

“What?”

Peter chuckled awkwardly.

“I was just joking, Mr. Stark –“

“No”, Tony frowned. “You said _Mrs_. Potts”.

“Huh?”

“Pep’s not married. Yet”, he blinked.

Peter’s stomach dropped.

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, right”, he said nervously, putting on an awkward smile. “Sorry, I always get this title thing mixed up. And, I mean, what difference does it even make, right? Nowadays? I think it’s kinda sexist that we still have to consider a girl’s – I – I mean, a, a lady’s – a w-woman’s marital status, when we refer to her, because what difference does it make –“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, I got it, kid”, Tony cut Peter’s rambling off, even though there was still a hint of suspicion on his face. “But you’re right. Pep does love you”.

Peter smiled, relieved that Tony hadn’t thought much about the slip.

“I knew it!”

“You’re like a puppy”, Tony rolled his eyes fondly at Peter’s excitement. “Also, what is it with that ‘Mr. Stark’ again? I thought we were already past this”.

Peter could feel the heat climb to his cheeks.

“Oh. Yeah, right. It’s – I’m just so used to call you Mr. Stark that it’s kind of hard breaking the habit”, he shrugged apologetically.

“Well, make an effort, then. It’s just weird having you call me Tony and then going right back to the Mr. Stark thing”.

“All right, Mr. – Tony”, Peter said, awkward. This earned a humorous snort out of his mentor.

“Ok, _Mr. Peter_ ”, he teased. “Let’s hit that play button”, he said, pressing play and making the movie start. Peter frowned.

“Hey, but that’s Star Wars!”

“Very well observed”.

“I thought we were watching your favorite movie for a change”.

“Yep”.

A beat.

“What?”

“What’s what?”

“ _Star Wars is your favorite movie_?”

Tony rolled his eyes.

“I wouldn’t say _favorite_ , but it’s definitely up there”.

“ _What_?”

“Why the surprise, kid? I was about your age when the first movie came out”

“I thought you were born in 1970”, Peter frowned.

“I was”.

“Mr. Stark”.

“Mr. Parker”.

“I’m not 7”.

“You’re not?”

“No”.

“Could have fooled me”.

“Ugh. Shut up”.

“Watch your manners, Spider-Kid”.

“You’re the worst”.

“I’m actually the best”.

A humorous sigh.

“You wanna grab that ice cream now, see if we can tone down that crankiness with some sugar?”

Peter was grumpily silent for a moment.

“… Yes”.

When Peter agreed to Doctor Strange’s offer, he had thought he would want to do _everything_ he possibly could with Mr. Stark before he had to leave. Watching movies. Playing videogames. Spending time at the workshop, maybe learning something only Tony could teach him. Talking, and joking around, and playing games, and going out. Living everything he wished he could have lived with Tony before… Well.

But deep down, he knew it wouldn’t be that way. His time here was limited; there was only so much he could do. And one of the things he had always enjoyed the most about the days he came over to Tony’s and they spent the afternoon together was watching movies with his mentor. Picking up plot holes, arguing about the real science behind the sci-fi, joking about the characters and the acting. Something purely domestic, probably quite cheesy, and an experience that he missed like hell.

Peter came to realize he didn’t have to do _everything_ he could do with Tony. Just being around him, doing something so etched in their routine, was already enough.

Sometimes, it’s the little things.

He ended up dozing off, his head resting on Tony’s lap, by the time they reached the third movie.

He felt comfortable, and this was the way their movie nights often ended. It was comforting, somehow. Familiar. And, even though he knew his time with Tony would end soon, he was glad it would at least end like this. In a way that never failed to make him feel cozy, and appreciated, and loved.

In a way that never failed to make him feel happy.

(In a way that almost managed to make him forget about –)

“I’m sorry, kid”, Tony’s whisper broke Peter away from his thoughts as he fatherly ran his fingers through the boy’s hair. This brought Peter’s attention, but he pretended to be asleep.

A few moments passed, the movie still playing in the background.

“I know you think you can fool me, and I don’t really know what happened, or how it happened, but whatever it was… I’m sorry”.

Peter’s heartrate sped up, but he kept his eyes closed and did his best to even his breathing out.

“The last thing I wanted was for you to go through something like that again”.

Silence.

Peter felt a silent tear escape one of his closed eyes and run down his temple. He kept his eyes closed, and he had no idea whether Mr. Stark knew he was awake or not. His fingers never stopped caressing Peter’s hair, though.

“But I’m sure that whatever happened… It was for good reason. And, if by the end of it, you’re still alive enough to come all the way back here and complain, then…”

A sigh.

“Then it means it was worth it”.

Silence. Peter stayed as still as a statue, eyes closed, head limp and face blank on Tony’s lap.

An eternity passed before Tony continued, and, by the time he did, his voice sounded older.

“There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do to make sure you’re safe, Pete. I don’t know how I’ve grown so fond of you, but – you’re important to me”.

A tiny chuckle, and a few more moments of silence.

“Actually, I _do_ know how. You’re a good kid. Probably the best kid I’ve ever met, too nice for your own good, as I’ve told you before. You’re good in a way most heroes can only dream of being. And I admire you. A lot”.

Peter stayed very still, heart burning inside his chest.

“Even though you’re just a seven-year-old muscular baby”.

Peter suppressed a smile, pretending to still be asleep.

More silence. The movie was still playing in the background, forgotten by the two of them.

“And I don’t know how I… _left you_ , or how you managed to get back to me, but I know one thing for sure”.

A pause.

“I wouldn’t have done whatever I did if I didn’t trust you completely. If I didn’t care about you. And I know it must have hurt, I can barely even imagine it, but, Pete –“, a sigh. “Rather me than you. Anytime, any day”.

Peter let out a shaky breath and kept his eyes closed. There was no way Tony didn’t know he was awake by now, but Peter allowed himself to be a coward for once and not face him. He wasn’t sure Mr. Stark would keep talking if Peter was looking him in the eye. Peter knew how difficult talking about feelings was for him.

“I’m sorry, kid, but that’s the truth. Whatever happened was worth it, if it means you’re still alive. You still have a great, long life ahead of you, Peter. So… Don’t waste it”.

Silence.

“’Don’t waste your life’. Probably the best advice I’ve ever gotten. Literally a life-changer. And now I’m giving it to you. That is, if you’re even listening to me”.

Peter stayed silent.

“And… Don’t beat yourself too much for it. I know, I know – easier said than done. But really. Wallowing in guilt and self-pity will take you nowhere. I say this from experience”.

A pause.

“Again… I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry. I don’t regret it, but I’m sorry. I could see it in your face how miserable you are, and how much older your eyes look, and I wish there was something I could do to change that”.

Silence.

Stretching. It didn’t seem that Tony would say anything else. He had probably said everything he wanted to say.

“Mr. Stark?”

A soft chuckle.

“I knew you were awake, Mr. _Parker_ ”, he said the surname with teasing.

Peter kept his eyes closed. His head was still resting on Tony’s lap, and Tony was still running his fingers softly across his hair.

A beat.

“Tony?”

He could almost picture Tony’s smile.

“Yeah, Pete?”

A hesitant silence.

And then…

“I love you”.

A pause. Pregnant. It felt like an eternity.

“I wish I had told you before”, Peter added in a small voice.

A sigh.

“I know, kid. And I love you too. I really do”.

For the first time in that night, Peter didn’t really feel like crying.

Tony kept watching the movie and running his fingers across Peter’s hair until they both succumbed to sleep.

Peter’s pain would never completely go away, but he finally saw a glimmer of hope, like his wounds could finally start healing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... This is it.
> 
> If I'm being honest, I didn't work as hard as I could have on an explanation for the time travel. My focus was on Peter and Tony seeing each other and talking to each other for the last time, with only Peter knowing about Tony's fate. But c'mon. Tony figured out time travel, he's too smart not to notice Peter's trying to say goodbye.
> 
> Anyway. I hope you liked this. As I said, it's sort of my own personal way to come to terms with Tony's death. Kind of needed to get it out of my system.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. Did I miss writing Iron Dad and Spider-Son? Did Far From Home fuck me up? Do I miss Tony like hell? Check all of those for yes.
> 
> This is clearly just my little personal therapy to deal with Tony's death. I did have some fun playing with a new writing style and the tenses. I hope this still turned out ok, though? Let me know what you thought on the comments! Constructive criticism is always appreciated, and so are kudos!
> 
> (Also, I'm aware punctuation marks go inside the quotation marks, I just like to leave period marks outside as a personal style).
> 
> P.S.: To the readers of The Way You Used To Do: no, I haven't abandoned it; yes, the next chapter will be up soon!  
> P.S.2: The title is from Radiohead's song of the same name


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